The Ancients From Alchera
by Ignisami
Summary: The frozen wastes of Alchera hold a secret that would change the face of the galaxy. The Collectors failed to kill Shepard and her impact on Alchera's surface woke the secret up. Follow Aurora 'Phoenix' Shepard as she embarks on the quest to stop the Cycle of the Harvest, aided by some unexpected people, bringing with them their own twists and turns in Shepard's life.
1. Alchera

**The Ancients from Alchera**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Mass Effect or Naruto. They belong to Bioware and Masashi Kishimoto, respectively. **

**(Version 2.0)**** 201****5-04-05. Changed some things, added others things, removed yet others.  
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– – – – – –

It was supposed to be a routine scouting patrol for any remaining Geth-related activity. They would move into the system, scan the planets, and move on to the next system if everything was green.

She should've known it would be messed with somehow. A routine day on Mindoir turned into hell, a routine vacation to Elysium turned to hell, _may the underworld claim __the Batarians_, a route pick-up to Eden Prime turned into hell, though this time Batarians were not involved, and so when this was supposed to be a routine scouting mission she should've been preparing for Armageddon. But she didn't, and this strange ship had appeared and gave Joker, of all people, problems dodging its attacks. Shortly after that they were hit and shit really started to hit the fan.

As explosions ripped through the Normandy, Joker didn't want to leave his seat so she had to get him out of there. Quite understandable really, if only a_ smidge_ annoying. The Normandy was Joker's baby and like a proud father he didn't want to leave her. Unlike an actual baby, _this_ baby was dead but didn't know it yet.

She'd barely been able to get Joker into an escape pod and hit eject when the explosion tore through the cockpit and what little atmosphere it still contained.

It ripped straight through her, smashed her into a support beam that was floating around, then into the remnants of the hull before sucking her out into the vacuum of space.

The most terrifying thing about it all was that it had all been absolutely silent. She knew, rationally, that the silence was due to the vacuum of space, but being hurled throughout a ship by the shockwave of a silent explosion into a support beam, then the remnants of the roof of the CIC, and _then_ out into space in perfect silence was unsettling.

And then the hissing began. It only took her a moment to realize that the only hissing that wouldn't immediately result in her death due to decompression was a tiny leak in her oxygen hose, a leak she desperately tried to close. A few extra seconds of oxygen was all she got as she realized she didn't have an armour repair kit on her and she started plummeting towards Alchera's frozen surface.

She realized it would take a miracle for her to survive. She was plummeting toward the planet from high orbit with a broken oxygen hose and no suit-repair kit on hand, ejected from a dying ship with its last, explosive, breath, and all she could do now was familiarize herself with Death.

She raged inside her suit. She hadn't survived the raid on Mindoir to die in the inky blackness of space! She hadn't persisted through the Blitz to perish near a godforsaken backwater planet! She yelled at Death itself that it wouldn't take her that easily even as her body started lighting up from orbital entry.

Miraculously, she was lucid enough shortly before she crashed to send the biggest pulse of biotics she could muster towards the ground. She wasn't an Adept by any means, but as a Sentinel she did receive training in the basics of biotics. It didn't get much more basic than a giant pulse in one direction to slow oneself down.

Even with the biotic brake she still slammed into the Alchera ice with unimaginable force, screaming. Not a scream from pain or fear, but a roar of righteous rage.

A short while later, she vaguely felt two furred arms close around her before she passed out from the sudden searing pain lancing throughout her body.

– – – –

She was drifting on the endless tides of the ocean. She'd always liked the sea despite her predilection for fire. The gentle rolling sound of waves hitting the shore never failed to soothe her, reminding her of home. _Home_, she thought with a nostalgic sigh. _When times were simpler. _

Home, where she was loved unconditionally by her parents. The home that was destroyed by those damned tree-huggers when she was seven, prompting her to start living amongst the clouds. It was then that her fondness for fire got started. Fire burned wood, after all. For a while, among the cloud-people, she found acceptance, friends, and met a boy that she hoped she would spend the rest of her life with.

And then the damned tree-huggers took him too when she was ten. Looking back, it was an infantile crush not destined to last long, but hindsight, as they say, is twenty-twenty. Then and there, she was disillusioned with life, and so she accepted the burden the leader of the cloud-people offered her; housing the hell-cat. It soon become her own nickname as she sought the vengeance her broken heart told her to seek. The Hell-Cat of the Cloud was a name she wore with pride, a promise of death unto her enemies, a promise of vengeance unto the trees for claiming the lives of the people she would gladly sacrifice herself for, those who she would gladly kill for.

In the ensuing decade, she drove away her friends in her single-minded pursuit of vengeance, until the leader of the cloud-people gave her her very own students. Students that she was explicitly told were _not_ to die alongside her in her ever-lasting quest for vengeance. She supposed she could do that, she was entrusted with the favoured niece of her leader and letting such a person die would be... She didn't have words to accurately describe the disaster that would follow such an event.

It was around this time that she met one of her fellows who also had a burden; circumstances had kept them apart for the decade prior but he swiftly became that annoying older brother that she'd always wanted. Her students soon added their own efforts to thaw her nearly-frozen heart and became the younger siblings that adored her simply because she was older, and therefore wiser. Within a few short years they would no longer revere her, but they would always respect her and they would always remain her younger siblings.

Her surrogate brother's students became like her own nieces and nephew. And then she met _him _on a diplomatic mission to the damned tree-huggers. At first, she'd discarded his presence; he was a tree-hugger, he was loud, he was annoying, and he wore that orange eye-sore. But he simply _didn't leave her alone!_ Being the favoured surrogate grandson of the Grand Hippie, the leader of the tree-huggers as she called him, granted him some protection because the clouds weren't keen to start war with the tree-huggers. She hit him hard a few times regardless simply because he was so annoying he reminded her of her older brother. But where her surrogate brother would spout bad rap and rhyme, though pretty damn good poetry if he set his mind to it, he would simply talk to her end on end without stopping, about nothing and everything at once!

When she learned that _he_ had more in common with her annoying brother than just being annoying, that he had a burden of his own similar to her and her brother's and that that was the reason he hung around her so much because he knew she was like him as soon as he saw her, she decided to at least make him _slightly_ less annoying by buying him a new wardrobe. She didn't dare trust him to do it himself, he said he was an unadopted orphan and the last unadopted orphan she met with good fashion sense was two months before she was conceived. That is, never.

It was an eye-opening experience. She always thought that tree-huggers prided themselves on teamwork, on _unity._ Mess with one, mess with them all... when it came to him, she was wrong. The first clothing store they walked into, he was kicked out of none too gently. She had great fun scaring the ever-living hell out of the store-owner in retaliation. A tree-hugger was a tree-hugger and she didn't rightly care if the one she scared or killed was civilian or military. Politics demanded she scare him, not kill him, though.

It was fun regardless, and made her see him less as annoying by choice like her older brother but more annoying because he was never told just how annoying he was. She wasn't rightly sure when exactly she saw him as her younger brother, but if she would have to put one specific date on it, she would say it was then. She took it upon herself to teach him properly how society worked, all sorts of social cues that he was simply never aware of due to being an orphaned pariah.

He left soon after with his sensei, one of the few tree-huggers she respected that still lived, on an extended training trip and she was recalled back to the clouds.

For a year or so, life went on as usual. She undertook missions for the clouds, she sparred with her students, she trained her body to perfection and attained a new level of understanding and friendship with her burden following a warning by _his_ sensei that a group of seriously powerful, shady people were after her hide. No, not _her _hide, her _burden_'s hide, though she couldn't rightfully call her burden a burden any longer. Not after the understanding they had gained.

When the so-called Zombie Duo came, Kakuzu of the Five Hearts and Hidan the Jashinist, they were expecting a powerhouse. They were expecting someone that would sling waves of destruction at them, which they could take and outlast.

They never expected her to fight like a hell-cat empowered ninja. She had them on the ropes, Kakuzu was down to a single heart and Hidan's head was somewhere miles away after she decapitated him and kicked away his head with all the strength she had that wouldn't outright destroy the head because as long as the limb or body part in question was intact, it wouldn't regenerate.

And then _that bastard_ came. Or rather, one of six bastards with the Eyes of the Sage. He flat-out overpowered her, _her_!, and took her captive as the Zombie Duo he had sent had intended to do. She blacked out from the exhaustion of the long fight with the three obscenely powerful ninja.

She would later learn that she was kept unconscious for three months. They didn't extract her burden as she thought they intended, they didn't rape her while she was out – she didn't know whether to be offended at that or not, she was always deemed highly desirable by any hormonal male she met but here was a group of nine men that didn't even so much as push her shirt and bra out the way –, they simply kept her 'on ice'.

When they finally did move to extract her burden, her _friend_, they were interrupted by _him_. He was still blond, still loud, still annoying, but she subconsciously moved him out of the 'surrogate brother' category into the 'potential boyfriend/husband' category because he looked _delicious_. He heard she was captured, spent two months trying to find out where, and then went like a bat out of hell to take her back. If that wasn't boyfriend material she didn't know what was. He even managed to take one of the bastards out! It wasn't Kakuzu, much to her dismay, but she would take the death of Deidara without shedding a tear. To put it in the words of her older brother, 'bitch is cray, fool ya fool'.

She travelled with them after that, honing the mind and body and developing a few new techniques with the aid of the hell-cat inside her, much like _he_ was helped by the hell-fox inside_ him. _She even became an official part of the tree-hugger military to stay with him, after she learned that her former home had given her up for dead. She kept referring to everyone that wasn't him as tree-hugger though, some of their reactions were simply hilarious. She was thanked most profusely that night... after putting up a few privacy barriers. Only he was allowed to see her in all her glory and his sensei was famous as a pervert, voyeur, and writer of smut.

Two years later, it began in earnest. The organization of extremely powerful people versus the rest of the world. It seemed that there were only ten standing against a hundred thousand, but the organization, Akatsuki, had a few tricks up their sleeve; clones and zombies. Suddenly both sides possessed equal numbers and similar general skill levels even if their side had the mental acumen advantage.

The war lasted a grand total of three weeks, and was all the more vicious for it. Ninja aren't really known for being friendly, but the war caused each and every one of them to reach new levels of darkness and depravity.

They managed to survive, if barely. She wasn't exactly sure on the details, those days were and are still a bit hazy in her mind. Her former nickname ended up becoming her, though. She was the new Hell-Cat. The Lady Two-Tails. The Nibi no Nekomata. She Who Guards The Gates. The Gates being the ones that all souls have to pass through to reach the afterlife. And the best part was, she only needed to _exist_ to do her job! Fortunately, existence was not a problem.

Eternal and Immortal were just two of the words that accurately described her after that. Had she been alone, she would have broken down and wept bitter, bitter tears as she watched her boyfriend, _mate_, grow old and die. But she wasn't. Both her older brother and her mate had the same thing happen to them. Her older brother was now Lord Eight-Tails, the Hachibi no Ushi-Oni, He Who Guards The Abyss. Her mate had become the Lord Nine-Tails, the Kyūbi no Kitsune, He Who Maintains The Cycle. Five of the remaining six Tailed Beasts were not custodians or embodiments of concepts but of elements, and agreed to merge with the remaining three to increase their power to ludicrous levels. The sixth decided to stay to give her older brother eternal company. She didn't see what his attraction to the Five-Tailed Dolphin-Horse was, but supposed she had little ground to complain on. She was a cat mated to a fox twice her size.

Eventually, as time passed and things became more and more peaceful, they retreated to far-away lands to live in solitude. Until rather suddenly, too sudden for them to react in time, another powerful madman had appeared and destroyed the moon, believing it to be the devil's work. Without a moon, the planet's ecosystem fell into disarray, and the planet shifted ever so slightly in its orbit.

Within two hundred years, the planet had frozen over completely. Another hundred years after that and temperatures had stabilized around minus thirty degrees. They were the only thing left on the planet now, and they had an ingenious idea; Fūinjutsu assisted sleep tied into a Fūinjutsu alarm to wake them just in case.

She was Uzumaki-Ni'i Yugito, the Nibi no Nekomata – though like her fellow Tailed Beasts perfectly capable of assuming a human form – She Who Guards The Gates, but right now she wanted that damn alarm to _stop ringing!_

…

…

…

Wait, ringing? That could only mean...

"Naruto-koi, wake up you damn lazy bastard!" she shouted with all the volume her voice could handle. Given that she was currently in her thirty-story tall cat form, that was a significant amount of noise.

"Wha-?" he said sleepily, his voice rumbling throughout the mountains courtesy of being a sixty-story tall fox. Naruto was never that good with rising from sleep, and sleeping for... a long time would definitely not be conducive to that. His eyes opened slightly. "Ringing. I knew I shouldn't have made the alarm so damn annoying," he groused, using a tail to swipe at an imagined alarm clock in a long-ingrained reflex.

She waited patiently for the gears to turn inside her mate's head. She watched as his eyes, once blue now a deep blood-red with four concentric rings that never failed to turn her on, widened not a minute later. "Someone's here!" he exclaimed jubilantly.

She nodded and they rose in tandem, the other two Tailed Beasts stirring, still half-asleep. They really must have been asleep for millennia if even Kirabi, her annoying older brother, had trouble getting up. She suspected that the only reason Naruto woke as soon as he did was because it was his own array, which meant that he had to anchor it to his own endless supply of chakra which in turn caused additional feedback because he _would _feel even the minutest drain on his own chakra, despite the size of his reserves, in addition to that infernal ringing. "Exactly, so let's go and find them," she said.

"You've got their location?" her mate asked as they swiftly made their way out of the glacier they had made their sleeping place. She nodded.

"I do. It's extremely faint, though. It's where the Gorge used to be."

"Right," her mate said. "So, five minutes at full sprint west?"

"Mmhmm," she confirmed even as they picked up the pace. She wasn't sure if the person that triggered the alarm even had five minutes left.

The frozen scenery varied little. There wasn't a lot of difference between a deep-frozen tundra and deep-frozen lush plains, but they managed to make do with what they had. It didn't hurt that they could navigate by natural energy alone.

Four minutes later, traversing the frozen planet at break-neck speeds, they stumbled upon a sight that was impressive even to their aged eyes. This human had survived a crash that caused a small crater upon impact, and apparently she didn't even have the benefit of chakra cushioning. She transformed into her human form, blonde hair with purple eyes and two blue tails swinging behind her, quite nude but completely unaffected by the cold. Such were the perks of being an immortal hell-cat whose form was made from flame. Her mate transformed with her, nine red, white-tipped tails swinging lazily about in the frigid air, though he needed to circulate fire chakra within himself to keep him from being affected by the cold.

"She's in a bad way," she said. "Not only is she a goddess among humans for still clinging to life, she's got barely developed chakra, though what little she has is _very_ refined."

"A civilian soldier, then?" he posited in an impressed tone as they both knelt beside her, working hard to keep her from freezing to death before they could move her to the cave.

She hummed. "Quite likely," she allowed. The next few minutes were filled with fevered work as they became accustomed to her blood flow, which differed slightly from the humans they were familiar with, keeping the blood flowing by pushing it forward with their chakra in addition to maintaining a cocoon of warmed air around her. "Let's rush back, Kokuo is the best healer of us all," she said when she deemed it safe for the woman to move.

"Of course, Yugi-chan," he said as he grabbed her arm before she could punch him for the nickname. "Thankfully I came prepared," he continued with a grin as he gathered his chakra. "Steady yourself... … **Hiraishin!**"

With a flash of yellow, the trio disappeared from the frozen crash site of Spectre Aurora Shepard.

– – – –

"Yo Mr. Nine-o, what's the dealio?" Kirabi half-yawned, too sleepy still to even bother with a half-assed meter.

"Civvie soldier crashed in what used to be the Gorge," he responded. There wasn't a need to clarify the statement, the only Gorge they ever referred to as such was the Gorge of Clouds and Thunder. "She needs immediate medical attention, Kokuo. She's in really bad shape."

Kokuo transformed into her own human form, an elegant white-haired woman with aquamarine eyes and ample breasts much like his Yugi-chan. "I can see that," she said dryly as she started a diagnostic to find out exactly what was wrong with the woman.

"Your powers of observation continue to serve you well, Kokuo," he responded equally blandly.

"But allow me," she continued, invoking a pout from her nine-tailed companion because of her interruption, "in lieu of the more commonplace sobriquet, to interrupt the coming monologue and say that it is a miracle this woman is still alive."

"What's exactly wrong with her?" Yugito asked. She could feel that this woman was important to the grand scheme of things. Probably a prophecy of some kind, she'd have to check the Halls of Prophecy soon.

Kokuo snorted. "It would be more accurate to ask 'what _isn't _wrong with her'? She's in possession of beyond third-degree burns, her armour is practically fused to her skin, her lungs are filled with ash, her organs are on the verge of liquefaction, and she's practically three breaths away from death."

He frowned. "So wouldn't it be better to just build her a new body and transfer the soul?"

"Not if we want to keep her personality and memories intact," Yugito informed them. "Which, mind you, it needs to be. She's Important to people Up There. The slight variation in psyche because of a transfer is _not_ permissible. At the very least it isn't until I can visit the Halls of Prophecy."

The other three nodded, eyes slightly wider than normal. It wasn't the first time they met people that were Important Up There, but even after untold millennia they could count the number of two hands and have fingers left over. "How long will it take to heal her?"

"A month?" Kokuo hedged cautiously. "I can't just heal everything either, quite a few organs need replacing entirely, and while we're at it we might as well beef up her chakra network."

"Let's get to it, then."

– – – –

She cracked her eyes open without much effort, much to her surprise. Her surprise increased when her eyes focused and she found herself wearing nothing but a very smooth silk kimono in the middle of an ice bed inside an enormous ice cave. She guessed the cave to be a massive nine kilometres in length and one-hundred fifty metres in height.

She sat up as silently as her body allowed her, marvelling at the lack of the excruciating pain she felt not five minutes earlier as she plummeted down towards the frozen dirt, looking around with very large eyes. The cave itself was rather unremarkable except for its size, but what surprised her was the amount of detail she could see. She could make out individual ice-stalagmites at what she guessed to be four kilometres!

A soft murmur drifted down from the opening of the cave nearly a kilometre from her bed, and she silently marvelled at the strength of her hearing. She winced as she swiftly realized that her new ears could become a big hindrance in a very, very short timescale. She made a mental note to order some specialized earplugs to tone down most sound.

She sat down cross-legged, folding the kimono so that the areas she considered private were kept from the sight of whoever was moving into the cave where she was. For some reason, the cold ice hardly bothered her, as if her nerve endings were dulled to the cold.

Four beings entered her vision, two male and two female. Had it not been for one tiny, _insignificant _thing she would have said 'humans' instead of 'beings'.

They had tails.

A blonde woman was trailed by a pair of brilliantly azure feline tails that were groomed to look like they were made from fire. The blond man next to her sported nine red vulpine tails, and Shepard was reminded of the stories Kasumi, her old housemate, used to tell about Nekomata and Kyūbi no Kitsune.

_Note to self: get back into contact with Kasumi if at all possible._

The other two, with hair as white as the driven snow, were slightly harder to categorize. The stately woman had a quintet of tails attached to her that reminded her of equine tails but... different, somehow. The man next to her was an unknown, until she saw the suction cups on eight the leathery-looking tails and realized they were tentacles.

She shivered a little. This was a little too close to tentacle hentai for her tastes.

She could hear mechanical whirring sounding from behind the four tailed humanoids, though it was rather far off. The blonde woman pointed in her direction and spoke something she couldn't make out. She could hear each word, but her Japanese was not what it once was and normal speaking speeds were beyond her ability to comprehend. The white haired woman vanished from sight, only to reappear next to her a second later. She leaned back, startled. This woman had just crossed what she guessed to be a kilometre in less than a second!

"Relax, Aurora Shepard," the woman said in a soothing tone in perfect Galactic Standard, not a trace of accent hinting at a planet of origin that the Council wasn't aware of. She tensed; how did the woman know her name? "I am Kokuo. I have spent the last three months healing you."

_Three months? What about Joker? Tali? Garrus? Liara? Wrex? _"Three months?" she asked in a dazed tone. She only got a nod as a reply. _What happened to my crew, my team, my _friends?

"Yes," Kokuo confirmed. "It only took a month or so to heal you, but you stayed in a coma for another two. Not altogether surprising, given the state you were in."

She turned a weary eye on Kokuo even as the other three made their way towards her, the mechanical clanking remaining in the background out of sight. "Where am I and how do you speak Galactic Standard?" she asked.

"You are approximately fifty kilometres from where you crashed," Kokuo replied serenely. "As for the language... we will tell you later. The new friend who taught the four of us told us you weren't exactly a fan of his kind."

Shepard eyed Kokuo warily. 'Not a fan of his kind' meant Batarians or Geth, assuming she was talking species. Otherwise it meant slavers, raiders, or pirates and she doubted that either of the three would keep a shapely woman like Kokuo intact.

Still, fifty kilometres from where she landed? That meant that she was still on Alchera, wearing nothing but a silk kimono on a planet that was -20 degrees Celsius at it's position closest to the Amada system star. Her call of bullshit must have shone on her face.

"I guarantee you, we are still on the planet you call Alchera, Aurora Shepard," she said as serenely as ever. "In the process of healing you, we made several... modifications to your body."

"What kind of modifications?" she asked bluntly with not a little bit of apprehension that her modifications changed who she was.

"We had to craft a new set of organs for you practically from scratch," Kokuo said bluntly. "So we improved them while we were at it. Your metabolism has been increased while your general resistance to poisons has shot through the roof. For example, you could drink a bottle of ethylene glycol and suffer naught but a mild stomach ache." She turned to face the blond man that had approached them during her talk. "Like this idiot did when he was young." She turned back. "In addition, you've been granted the use of chakra, the blend of physical and mental energies to perform feats of unimaginable proportions... with training."

"Yup," the blond man agreed in the same perfect accent of Galactic Standard. "Things you can do with chakra include, but are not limited to, spitting fire and water, throwing lightning, harnessing the wind and shearing the earth. I gave you the Terumi clan Lava chakra as well, which will allow you to produce corrosive lava, though to do so I had to practically remove your ability to produce wind and water," he finished with a brilliant smile.

She gaped. What kind of nutcases were they? Producing elements from her body as if she was a god? The man nodded sagely as the other blond joined him. "I see you don't believe me," he said with another sage nod. "That was totally my reaction when I first learned about chakra. Allow me to demonstrate."

He took a few steps back and to the side. "You'll want to turn around for this one," he said mischievously. The female blonde turned to him with exasperation written on her face. "What in the name of the Sage are you going to do?" she asked. He simply brought his hands together and made two strange configurations with his fingers that looked downright uncomfortable. "**Yōton**," he intoned calmly. "**Yomi Kazan**."

Shepard's jaw felt like it dislocated as she watched as his three words produced a miniature _volcano in the middle of the glacier! _And she was going to be able to do that, if she understood correctly.

"How?" she asked in a daze. He simply chuckled.

"Chakra," was his cheeky reply that earned him a smack on the arm from the other blond. "That was the product of a years' worth of high-intensity training similar to what we'll be putting you through." He slapped his own cheek as if admonishing himself. "Where are my manners?" he muttered softly. "Allow me to introduce myself, Aurora Shepard. I am Uzumaki Naruto, and this is my wife Yugito. You've already met Kokuo, and the other guy is Kokuo's husband, Kirabi."

"Yo," the hulking man called Kirabi said with a wave. She waved back.

"A pleasure, I'm sure," she replied. She decided that she would ask a question that was burning in her mind since she had first heard it. "What's the source of the mechanical whirring I hear from where you came from?" she asked, her mind dreading the possible answer. The answer that suddenly became a lot more likely as she watched Kokuo, who had so far seemed remarkably collected, flinch ever so slightly.

"That's our friend we mentioned earlier," she said in the serene tone she figured Kokuo always spoke in. "We call him Taigun," Kokuo continued. Wooden vines sprung from the ice below her and snared her in place. The colour drained from Shepard's face as this could only mean one thing. "He is what you call Geth."

Shepard's hand tried to fly to where her weapons usually hung on her frame but the vines wouldn't budge. Kokuo smiled, though she could see a hint of sadness in it. _Whatever is she sad for? _"Taigun told us you'd react like that. We should inform you that he landed about two months ago. If he wanted you dead you would be dead already. Chakra does not make one immune to bullets. Come on out and say hello, Taigun," she added the last with a shout towards the cavern's entrance as Shepard was still struggling with the vines.

A Geth unit unlike anything Shepard had seen before jogged into view. He was sleeker, yet bulkier than any similar unit she'd seen so far. He moved with a grace that she didn't usually associate with Geth troopers. She paused in her struggling as her mind whirled to analyse the Geth moving towards her. It was faster, more elegant than other troopers. It had a shine to it that other Geth Troopers didn't possess. Shiny coatings were a combat hazard, so it was unlikely that this was a combat model. It stopped in front of her, well within her reach if only these _damn vines would let go!_

"Shepard-Commander, this unit greets you," it said. She froze trying to process the phenomenon. Geth didn't speak! Absently, she corrected it while she was still processing the phenomenon of a talking Geth.

"Spectre, not Commander. I had to resign my Alliance commission when my probationary period was up."

"Shepard-Spectre, this unit greets you," it said again, the statement slightly modified to include the new information. She slowly stopped struggling, reminding herself that when Geth platforms were destroyed the programs that inhabited them simply uploaded into the main Geth network unless you could jam the wireless transmission, and she didn't have a jammer on her. That was part of the reason why they were such bastards to fight. Kill one no matter how stealthily and the rest knows where you are. Kill a few in open combat and the rest will be more familiar with how you fight. She decided to get some information.

"Why are you here?"

"The Geth desire an intermediary. We have observed unusual interactions between organics and determined the best representative to convey our findings to the Citadel Council. To this end, we sought you out, Shepard-Spectre.

"We determined your last known location from reports filed to the System Alliance Administration and Citadel Council and developed a platform with sufficient hardware to function autonomously for extended periods. We traced your path to the Amada system, where abrupt signal termination was encountered. Flying debris that was determined to be from the vessel SSV Normandy indicated a hostile encounter with another vessel with the likely conclusion of the Normandy's destruction. Consensus was achieved and our exploratory vessel touched down on the planet designated Alchera at the location we determined to have a 60% probability of being your crash site. Our estimations were off by twenty-five kilometres. Three minutes after we landed, we were met with the organically impossible presence of Uzumaki-Kyūbi and were brought here."

She raised an eyebrow. "And how did you manage to track my path?"

Taigun moved his eyeflaps in a gesture curiously close to how humans express discomfort. _Discomfort at what? _"Security encryption used by organic government falls within minutes of a hacking attempt initiated by the Collective. We have duplicates of all your reports, files from most megacorporations, and the Citadel Council."

Shepard stared with wide, horrified eyes. The Geth could do that? "What happens now?" she managed to get out with great difficulty. She needed to let Anderson know post-haste.

"Right now?" Naruto responded. "Very little. You're going to rest up, and then we're going to spend the next two years training you in your chakra."

"Why two years?" she asked. It seemed such an arbitrary amount of time.

"Other than the fact that untrained chakra in the quantities you have it available to you is dangerous to you?" he asked in return. "There won't actually be much of note going on in the next two years.

"We're going to have to relocate, however. Your continued existence is to be kept a tight secret, and this planet will be swarming with people looking for your body soon enough. Taigun has graciously offered transportation for the five of us." He retracted the vines and gave her a soft shove on her shoulder.

"So take this moment to catch some more sleep. You'll need your energy soon enough."


	2. The Years Between I

****Someone request clarity, so I'm going to give it to them the best way I know how; bluntly. ****

**The Sharingan [Copy Wheel Eye] in **_all_** its forms, is **_dead. _

**The Mokuton [Wood Release] is **_dead_**. The wooden vines from last chapter will be explained in this. **

**Lastly, any and all shinobi not explicitly or implicitly mentioned alive in this chapter are dead.**

– – – –

The first thing her mind noted as it entered her post-sleep start-up cycle was that she felt heavy, like she had gained twenty kilos overnight. The second thing was that she was lying on something _very _comfortable.

Then everything else hit her. The ash in the air she breathed, the dry heat of the atmosphere around her, the loud noises in the background, as if bombs were going off non-stop. She carefully cracked her eyes open, trying her best not to move a muscle in case her surroundings were hostile. Grey walls met her vision and she wondered where she was. She looked around as best she could without being obvious about it; the other walls were grey as well. The room she was in was small and cramped, counting one standard-size bed at each wall that didn't have the perfectly rectangular and currently open door to the outside. She heard the soft sounds of an idle ship's engine close by that was slowly powering down. Obviously she was on a space-worthy ship of some kind that had landed and was staying here for a while. Eezo drives powerful enough for FTL sometimes took _days_ to fully power down. She could hear far-off explosions going off continuously, as if someone had married an old-school M61 Vulcan gun with an MIRV and was firing it with abandon.

Then her recent memories hit her with full force; the death of the SSV Normandy, the crash on Alchera, meeting those four strange individuals, being told that three months had passed, being informed of 'chakra' was and a demonstration by _casually creating a volcano in a glacier!, _then the Geth, _Geth!_, that was actually _speaking_ to her. A _Geth_ that was _speaking! _A groan split past her dehydrated lips, far too many shocks had happened in far too rapid a succession yesterday.

At least, she hoped it was yesterday. She sat up gingerly, her muscles felt stiff and she didn't want to aggravate them unnecessarily. She was glad that the sensitivity of her ears seemed to have gone down, though. On second, belated, thought; why did the Geth speaking hold her attention more than casually creating a volcano on a frozen planet?

"Yo, Mr. Nine-o!" a voice boomed from around the corner and she groaned again. Couldn't he use a headset like a normal person? Her auditory sensitivity may have gone down, her ears were still far sharper than normal and there was next to zero sound dampening in these walls. She remembered him as the tallest man she ever laid eyes on, standing at over two metres. Wasn't he called Kirabi or something like that? "Shep's awake bro!"

She could hear footsteps moving towards her at a rapid clip even as the person near her door walked away at a more subdued pace. She stood up carefully, flexing her muscles in an attempt to loosen them up a bit with the current lack of space necessary for meaningful stretches. She held a hand against the wall to steady herself as she walked forward. Just how long had she been asleep? "Kokuo and me will be out, scouting the lands throughout," she could hear Kirabi say. Was he always going to talk that way? She hoped not. "Alright, don't forget your Henge," she heard another male voice respond. _What the hell's a Henge? _Her brows furrowed as she tried to engage her brain trying to remember what the word meant... but it wouldn't respond nearly as quickly as she was used to. _What the hell's going on? _

She made it outside the small craft, which was exactly as small as the tiny sleeping room made it appear to be, barely twenty metres in length and painted a metallic grey, much like the interior.

Her eyes drifted to gaze upon the decidedly alien landscape. She could see an erupting volcano in the distance, surrounded by desert on one side and a craggy mountain range on the other. There was even more ash in the air here and the atmosphere was stifling. Massive strikes of thunder could be seen in the distance, the air distorting the normal rumbles of a thunderstorm into a sound that was more fit for an explosion that a lightning strike. She guessed it to be a solid forty degrees Celsius. She could only hope that this was this planet's equivalent of summer. A shiver ran down her spine as she realized this place looked a bit like she always imagined Tolkien's Mordor would look like.

Strangely enough, she wasn't sweating even a tiny bit. Was this more of that strange 'chakra' stuff that was mentioned?

"A good morning, Aurora Shepard. Or maybe afternoon. This planet's cycle is weird," Naruto said with a shrug once he had closed the distance.

"How long have I been out, Naruto, was it?" she asked, trying to recapture her Commander 'Don't mess with me' Shepard vibe back by leaning on one leg and crossing her arms in front of her stomach.

"Indeed it is I, Uzumaki Naruto," he confirmed with a nod and a smile. "You've been out like a light for two standard days, according to our metallic friend Taigun."

Two standard days? That wasn't so bad at all, approximately equal to two and a half Earth days of sleep. But why did she feel so lethargic. so slow to process incoming sensory input, if it had only been 60 or so hours? Voicing her thoughts, Naruto's face transformed from a bright smile into a slight frown. "That's because your chakra is still locked at the moment, Aurora Shepard," he said. "The lethargy will go away with exercise and actually training to use your chakra."

Right. _What the hell is he talking about? 'Locked' chakra? _"What the hell _is_ chakra?" she demanded. "You mentioned only that it was a blend of physical and mental energies, but there's not such a thing as physical and mental energies!" she yelled at him. He had the audacity to chuckle. _Chuckle_!

"I'm not the person you ask something about chakra theory," Naruto said bluntly. "While I'm far from unintelligent these days, I am still more adept at tactile learning than learning by books. My understanding of chakra is instinctual. Any one of the other three would be able to give you a better answer, though you'd have to decipher Kirabi's rap of... indeterminate quality. I would recommend Yugito, but I'm biased," he added with a wry grin. She snorted, remembering he had introduced Yugito as his wife, and decided that now was the time to ask a question that she had been dying to ask since she walked out of the ship before the blonde starting talking again.

"Where are we?" she asked. "I don't recognize the landscape at all."

Naruto's frown turned back into a radiant smile. She suspected he was enjoying her confusion at the moment, the bastard. "This planet is on the Council Interdiction List, following the slaughter of Council First Contact teams a few decades ago, according to Taigun-kun," Naruto informed her happily. This planet was on the Interdiction List? At least that narrowed it down to seven planets, _all _of them extremely unfriendly at best. She hoped it was simply an extremely unfriendly planet rather than one of the outright hostile ones. She would have responded had Naruto not continued. "I have multiple instances of myself running around at the moment trying to find out how this planet's civilization, and it has one, works."

"You have multiples of yourself running around," she said in a deadpan after taking a moment to process his words, levelling a glare onto Naruto who nodded brightly. "Is this more of what that 'chakra' can do? And you still haven't said the name of the planet." Seriously, what _couldn't _this chakra do?

Naruto nodded again. "It is. It's called the **Kage Bunshin no Jutsu**. [Shadow Clone Technique] I create perfect copies of myself that return their experiences back to me upon dispelling voluntarily or through force. Perfect for recon, and you'll be learning how to do it yourself. As for the planet's name?" he said while turning around so that she faced his back. He planted his right foot on a conveniently placed ankle-high rock, stretching his right arm dramatically into the air as he did so.

"Welcome to Parnack."

– – – – _Two Standard Days Ago, Space Over Alchera – – – – _

Her eyes narrowed in annoyance as yet another team failed to give her any sort of solid information on their target. They'd been here in the space over Alchera for three months already and they just couldn't find her! They were running out of time, Council or Alliance recovery teams could be here any day now. A screen started to glow the customary orange and she almost absently pressed the haptic button to open the incoming communication from one of her teams ground-side.

"Yes?" she asked curtly.

"We've got a massive heat reading, ma'am," her subordinate in charge of that particular team said. She trained her eyes on the holographic rectangle with the lines representing the speaker's audio waves, her flaring temper suppressed in light of potentially positive news.

"Do tell," she said impatiently, absently putting an errant lock of hair in its place.

"Heat readings are consistent with a class-3 eruption under a few kilometres of ice, ma'am. I've taken the liberty to send a recon team to find out what's what."

She raised an eyebrow. A competent, or at least not unintelligent subordinate? "Keep me posted," was all she said, tacitly approving of his decision. If it backfired it was on the subordinate's head, if it succeeded she could always claim credit if she so desired.

"Will do, ma'am." The line went dead.

A class-3 eruption underneath a glacier on a world that has been frozen over since before the Asari stumbled upon it nearly three thousand years ago, that had seen not even a single class-1 eruption in at least ninety million years if Asari atmospheric dating was correct? Something was very off here.

She mentally flagged the subordinate for promotion assessment. Even semi-competent underlings were so hard to come by these days.

– – – – _Current Day – – – – _

Shepard froze, staring at the blond in his dramatic pose with horrified eyes. Parnack? The homeworld of the Yahg, a species with adults that weighed three times as much as the average human while standing between 180 and 250 cm depending on gender and age? The species of which the sole surviving video accounts showed a brutality close to that of the historic account of Rachni, or the Krogan Rebellions?

"P-Parnack?" she asked hesitantly. A stray thought entered her head. "How did you not trigger Council Interdiction Squad intervention?"

"Indeed," he confirmed calmly. "As for your second question... we have a synthetic friend perfectly capable of masking our tracks. I don't know more than that. As for your implied question of 'why here?'..." He paused for a moment. "This planet is absolutely perfect for your training."

"How could a planet known for having the second-most brutal, tied second with the Krogan, species in known galactic history be absolutely perfect for _training_?" she asked incredulously, making a valiant attempt to smother her fear. She was an N7 graduate and a Spectre, she didn't do the whole 'showing emotions' thing!

"The answer to that lies in the higher than Earth gravity, or even higher than Alchera gravity, and your chakra, which Yugito and Kokuo will explain further," the blonde said, crossing his hand at the small of his back. "Kirabi and I will oversee your physical regimen and most of your actual chakra training. Kirabi will mostly take care of your physical regimen, he doesn't have a lot to teach you regarding the use of chakra for his focuses most on water and lightning with a dash of wind."

"Can you speak in less confusing riddles, please?" she asked, practically half-begged. She would deny it if asked, though. Spectre Shepard _did not_ beg.

"Once your education under Yugito has progressed for even a week, what I just said will not be a riddle." He turned and walked away, motioning for her to follow. Once her mind had processed the action, which took longer than she was comfortable with, she moved to keep pace with the blonde. "Your training will be of high intensity, both the theoretical parts and the physical parts."

_Well, shit. I never was all that good at the theory of something that wasn't related to engineering or history. _It was why she underwent Sentinel training, rather than train to be an Adept or Vanguard. Her grasp on biotics was good, but it _paled_ when compared to her engineering skills and she couldn't become a Combat Engineer because she had biotics. Hell, even Tali had said she was impressed by her back on the Normandy! "Where are we going and what are we going to do?" she asked curiously.

"There is a cave up ahead," he said as they continued to walk at a leisurely pace so she could keep up. "That will be our staging area. Every day you will perform morning and evening workouts, callisthenics mostly at first with the rest of the day filled by chakra training. Every second day will be fully devoted to theory except for the morning and evening workouts. Every third day will be spent with our synthetic friend Taigun to keep your engineering skills up, taking precedence whenever there's a clash with the chakra theory days. As much as you dislike Taigun-kun," he started to add after noticing she was tensing up at the mere mention of Taigun, "he is a fully synthetic sapient being and as such an invaluable instructor for this discipline. Though given the history that Taigun-kun shared with us, I can't say I entirely blame you for your reaction.

"Trust will come in time," he added in a tone she surmised was supposed to be sagely. She scoffed internally; like hell she was going to trust a Geth without having her favourite Quarian give her seal of approval. "Your physical regimen will be fairly simple at first; simple callisthenics and running. For all that we rebuilt you better than you were, your muscles are still mostly unused. We'll wait with the flexibility training until later," he finished, stressing the words 'flexibility training' in a subtle way that made her feel distinctly ill at ease.

"Flexibility training? Like, gymnastics?"

He grinned a grin that she could practically see despite still walking behind him. "Oh no. More in the sense of, 'dodge like hell or you might seriously die'."

She groaned. That did not sound fun, or sane. Why go to such lengths to rebuild her only to kill her again if she wasn't paying attention? She turned a weary eye on him, somehow she got the impression that wasn't all. Probably to do with the impossibly wide grin on the expectant face aimed her way. "My gut says you're holding something back. Spit it out."

"Very well, Aurora Shepard," he said as he turned his head so that she could see his maniacal grin. "If you want to know so badly, I'll be stirring up a little riot among the local tribes in the next two years. Your graduation exam will be to put it down. Permanently."

_A riot of nothing but Yahg? Spirits above and below, he's insane! _Shepard froze again, staring at the blonde with horrified eyes for the second time in less than an hour.

"Naruto-koi," a woman's admonishing voice came from ahead as a feeling of calm washed over her. "You're scaring her."

"Yugi-chan," Naruto whined like a child instead of the grown man he was. "You're taking away all my fun."

She sighed and put her hands together in what Shepard would later learn was the Ox hand seal. "**Suna no Kaiha**," [Sand Arm] she intoned calmly as an arm of sand erupted from the ground and picked Naruto up by the scruff of his neck. Shepard couldn't help but chuckle at the blonde's predicament even as she internally goggled at the casual display of environmental control. Much like an owner scolding their pet, Yugito turned a stern eye on her husband. "Naruto, behave."

Yugito turned her head to look at Shepard, steadfastly ignoring Naruto's pout. "You're looking well, Aurora Shepard," she said.

"Call me Shepard, please," she said. She wasn't overly fond of her first name after elementary school.

"Very well then, Shepard. Come with me," she responded, motioning with a tail for her to follow as she walked away with her husband in tow, still in the clutches of the hand of sand. Not fifty metres further down the mountain path they stopped in front of a cave. "This is, as my husband has said, the staging area. This is where you will sleep, eat, and learn. Training will be done outside. Any questions?"

Shepard simply shook her head. Even if she had questions, she didn't think she'd get answers she'd be able to comprehend just yet.

"Good. Then let's begin. First step: unlocking your chakra."

– – – – _One day ago – – – –_

She was reading a progress report from the team on the other side of the planet when the orange glow of the haptic communications interface attracted her attention. She narrowed her eyes at it. The recon team sent to explore the Class-3 eruption took a full day to find it and report back?

_This had better be _damned_ good._ She accepted the call. "Talk," she said curtly, letting the full force of her displeasure at their tardiness be known in that single word. She heard her subordinate gulp nervously and a small smile flitted across her face before she suppressed it ruthlessly. Sounds of struggle were audible in the background.

"We've found something but you're not going to be believe me if I tell you, ma'am. I think it better that you come down here and see for yourself."

She scowled. What was this subordinate playing at? "I think whatever you've found cannot be as bad as you're making it out to be, Field Researcher," she said in a tone reflecting the Alchera surface.

"I respectfully disagree, ma'am," was the researcher's only response in a tense voice. She could hear shouting in the background and turned up the volume.

"-ucking sacrifice you heathens to the glory of Jashin-sama!" a man's voice yelled. Her brows furrowed. _What in the name of God? _She turned the volume down, silently thanking her boss for insisting she learn multiple Terran languages the old-fashioned way, including Japanese. _What would a Japanese-speaking person be doing on Alchera, of all places? _She wondered absently. Last she checked, the only thing on Alchera was ice, ice, and more ice.

"This had better be _damn _good, Field Researcher." She closed the connection. _What have those idiots stumbled upon _this_ time? _

She shook her head as she made her way to the shuttle. Even her inner monologue was becoming exasperated lately.

– – – – _Current Day_ – – – –

Shepard put her hands in the shown configuration, wondering when her hands had last been so dexterous. Sure, she could type rather fast as was required of an Alliance Sentinel with a heavier focus on the tech side than the biotic side, but she hadn't had true dexterity in her fingers since she was eighteen and had to mostly stop playing guitar due to time constraints with military training. Her mind felt clearer just by putting her hands in this position, but that may have been wishful thinking.

Yugito poked and prodded her hands to correct even the minutest of mistakes. She got the feeling that Yugito was going to demand perfection in everything. "So, why is unlocking chakra so vital for me?" she asked curiously.

"Under normal circumstances, it wouldn't," Yugito admitted. "However, my dearest husband decided to give you chakra reserves to a Kage, which is rather a lot of chakra for humans."

"How is that bad?" she asked confused.

"Because chakra flows through the body in a chakra network called the Keirakukei," Yugito explained. "Think of it as an extra set of blood vessels, except it transports chakra instead of blood. Similar to blood, the body produces chakra continuously. _Unlike_ blood, chakra does not break down. There are no chakra 'cells' to break down and die to be replaced by newly produced chakra, _and _there isn't a limiter in your body that says 'stop producing chakra' when the Keirakukei is full. Normally, even with a 'sealed' system, there is some chakra bleed so that the chakra system does not overflow, a phenomenon which _will_ kill. This bleed is not particularly large, however, so only untrained, civilian-level chakra can be left unlocked until a natural death from old age."

"How much more chakra is this 'Kage-level' compared to an untrained civilians'?" she asked somewhat nervously.

"Approximately ten _thousand_ times as much. It is so much that your body is slowly shutting down its main activities, inducing a lethargic state. Frankly, I don't know how you survived as long as you have with as much chakra as my husband has given you."

Naruto coughed in a clearly fake manner. Their heads turned towards the still-hanging blonde, who was holding up a metre-long plain black rod. Yugito sighed. "That answers that. He stuck that in you and siphoned off chakra," she clarified upon seeing Shepard's confused expression.

"You can do that?" she asked incredulously, her hands starting to tremble from the strain of the weird configuration.

Naruto nodded. "You'll find that there is very little I _can't _do with chakra, Shepard," he said, putting action to word by almost casually breaking the sand arm by sticking the black rod into it, landing with a soft thud on two feet.

"Back on track," Yugito said curtly. "Now that you've prepared the Ram seal, as that particular position is called, all you have to do is find your chakra and bring it out.

"The chakra network has 361 tenketsu, or chakra points, through which we can expel chakra. By doing this you are forcing your tenketsu open, which will increase the bleed of chakra to safe levels."

Shepard nodded. That seemed simple and reasonable enough. Except... "How do I do that, exactly?"

Yugito face-palmed with a soft mutter Shepard couldn't understand while Naruto chuckled. "Turn your focus inward," the male blonde said. "Ignore sensory input and reach out with your mind to inside your body. You should find a source of warmth. Focus on it, grasp it, and bring it out."

That sounded similar to what her biotics instructor said back in the Academy. She nodded and sank into the same meditative state she used when she was learning to harness her biotics, keeping her hands in the same position despite the ache from tendons stretching further and longer than they had in years.

It didn't take her all that long to find the described source of warmth. She suspected that her earlier biotics training was responsible for both her easy acceptance of chakra – she rationalized it as extremely advanced biotics – and the ease with which she found her own core of chakra. A source of warmth spread from her stomach through her body, and she guessed that this was her chakra core.

A minute and fourteen attempts at grasping the chakra later she sighed mentally. It was like trying to grasp a body of water with her bare hands! _What if I bring it out as if it _is_another form of biotics? _

The idea had merit, she decided after a few seconds. Both were forms of energy, capable of being manipulated, and produced by her body. What could go wrong? She went through her mnemonic to fire a Warp but refrained from throwing it and opened her eyes to see if it worked. A red-orange glow met her gaze. _My hands are on fire!, _she thought, instinctively shutting off the chakra flow much like she would cancel a mid-preparation Warp. She breathed a sigh of relief when she saw the fire go out, leaving her hands as pristine as they were before.

"Fire," she heard Naruto mumble. "Aggression, offence and counter-defence rather than defence and counter-attack, recklessness, and a temper. We can work with that."

"Indeed," Yugito agreed readily. Shepard wanted to rail at them for describing her as reckless and having a temper, but flinched internally as she realized that she was going to do exactly what they were saying she was going to do. "What do you think? **Karyūken**?" [Fire Dragon Fist]

"It's a possibility," Naruto continued, keeping his voice at the same volume as before. "Or a blend? **Uzukaryūken**?" [Whirling Fire Dragon Fist]

She stretched her fingers to relieve the ache, silently marvelling at the fact that she hadn't felt so... _alive_ in years! Her body was flooded with energy and she found it hard to sit still, much like a six year old on a sugar rush. Her thoughts were whirling through her mind at much the same speed and frequency, but comprehension of outside stimuli was faster. Much faster. "Earlier," she started, grabbing both her teacher's attention. "You said 'for humans'. Are you not human yourself?"

"We once were, a long time ago," Yugito said. "Exactly how long I don't know. Now, though, we are Bijū. Tailed Beasts. We ditched our fully human bodies to become masses of sapient chakra." She poked herself. "As you can see, though, we possess the ability to transform into human and humanoid forms.

"Now that you've unlocked your chakra," Yugito continued without giving Shepard a chance to ask more questions, "we're going to start your training. Two years may seem like a long time, but it's not."

– – – – _Two Earth DaysInto the Future– – – –_

She swallowed nervously as she made her way to the Quantum Entanglement Communicator, a recently developed technology by the Alliance, stolen by Cerberus, that was practically eavesdrop-proof. Despite the recovery of an apparently immortal man, her boss was unlikely to be pleased.

The immortal man was not Shepard, after all. She could only hope that the knowledge of this new energy, 'chakra' the man called it, was enough to stave off her boss' ire. Her subconscious scoffed. Of course it wouldn't be. The recovery of Shepard was vital because Shepard was a symbol of humanity's perseverance through harsh times, because Shepard could rally even the most disparate of individuals behind her, because Shepard was a beacon of everything that was _right_ with humanity. Uncompromising of her human nature even while observing alien rituals and customs enough that they would follow her of their own free will.

And she, Miranda Lawson, had failed to procure such an individual for reconstruction in the Lazarus Project. If she lived out the month it would be a miracle.

Filled with apprehension, though she allowed none of it to show on her face or body language, she entered the QEC. The holographic overlay of her boss' office superimposed itself on her end of the two QEC's even as a hologram of herself appeared on the QEC in her boss' office.

"_Miranda,_" her boss greeted her, colder than she'd ever heard him before. She gulped audibly.

Her boss was _not_ pleased.

– – – – _Current Day – – – – _

Shepard came to a halt behind her two blond teachers in the middle of a flat plain. The closest comparison Shepard had in mind were the salt flats she once saw a picture of, except with sand.

Her lungs and muscles screamed from the exertion, the pace between the cave and the flats having been brutal even by N7 standards. Her two teachers weren't even breathing hard. "What now?" she got out between pants.

"Normally," Yugito started to explain. "We'd have you get some chakra theory under your belt before starting a physical regimen and _then_ do this, but your prolonged state of dormancy necessitates that this goes first. Can you guess why?"

Shepard frowned in thought. They'd not mentioned what they were going to do here. "I assume we'll be doing something with this 'chakra'?"

Yugito nodded. "Then, I can only guess that in a vein similar to proper blood flow, proper chakra flow is important too?"

Yugito nodded again with a slight grin on her face. "Very good, Shepard. Yes, we will be working on actually using your chakra the next few days so that any irregularities in your chara flow from prolonged stagnancy are smoothed out. Naru-koi, if you will a tree?" she asked of her partner who only nodded before clapping his hands together with a look of concentration on his face.

He separated his hands and slammed both to the ground in front of him. A curious green glow appeared directly in between his hands and this glow then grew upward. Her eyes widened as she recognized the shape the green glow was assuming. She didn't recognize the type but she could tell that a large tree, easily seven metres tall, was being formed in front of her eyes.

"**Senpō: Onmyōton: Banbutsu Sōzō**!" [Sage Art: Yin-Yang Release: Creation of All Things] Naruto yelled out and a tree she could now identify as a gigantic oak tree, seven metres tall, two metres in diameter, fully came into being in front of her. It was a rather standard oak tree with a rich green crown and the first three metres completely bare of any form of branches. She took half a step back and pointed a shaky finger at the tree with wide eyes.

"H-How did you do that?" she asked with wonder and awe in her voice. A grin appeared on Naruto's face.

"That is part of why there is very little I _can't _do with chakra. The secret is in my eyes, known as the **Rinnegan**. [Samsāra Eye] Among other things, they literally allow me to create things from pure chakra."

"Woah," she replied eloquently, suitably impressed. "Out of curiosity, what can't you do with chakra?"

"Illusions," Naruto answered curtly. She nodded, easily rationalizing the fact that an energy that could be used to create something tangible could create something _in_tangible. "The only illusion I can sort of do is the **Jubaku Satsu **[Tree Binding Death], which I used to restrain you back on Alchera." Shepard allowed an eyebrow to meet her hairline. Those vines had certainly _felt_ real. Then again, it wasn't much of an illusion if it didn't feel convincingly real. "Five hundred thousand years of practice and I still suck at them," Naruto groused softly, but loud enough for her to hear. _Did I hear that right? Five hundred thousand years?_

"Pressing on," Yugito interrupted, "Your first exercise is this: climb to the top of that tree without using your hands."

She turned a confused eye to Yugito. "What, like chakra suction cups on the bottom of my feet? Is that even possible?"

Yugito looked at her, impressed with her quick deduction. Certainly her students way back when didn't get the idea that fast. _Then again_, Yugito thought, _she _is_ an adult, not a green behind the ears twelve-year-old. _Yugito nodded. "Yes it is, and it's exactly what you'll need to do. Too much chakra and you'll be blown away, too little and you'll fall to the ground. I recommend a running start."

"Here," Naruto said, drawing both women's attention. "This is how it's done." He casually walked to the tree he had created and placed a foot on the bark. "Like you said, chakra suction cup." He placed his second foot on the bark, higher than his first, and continued walking leisurely up the bark until he hung upside down from a branch, much like a bat would. "Your muscles still need toning, Shepard," he said as he walked back down. "Walking up the way I did is something for next month, when your leg muscles have shaken off three months and a few days of rust."

She nodded to show her understanding of the rather sensible words. She decided to practice channelling chakra to her feet while standing still so that she wouldn't run up the tree without creating the chakra suction cups. That would simply be embarrassing.

After a few minutes, she nodded to her herself and took a deep breath. She ran full-tilt at the tree, channelling chakra to her foot as she put the appendage on the bark. Her second followed swiftly in the wake of the first, and then her first foot took her third step on the tree when she lost control of the chakra and was launched from the tree with a minor explosive sound, landing on her butt three metres away. Repeating the process saw much the same result.

She sighed. This could take a while.

– – – –

**DUN DUN DUN HIDAN LIVES! What will Cerberus learn about chakra from him?**

**Naruto mentions five hundred thousand years of practice. Keep in mind, this is well **_after_** he became the Kyūbi and obtained the Rinnegan. Also keep in mind that this is _well before_ he and the rest of his Tailed Beast compatriots went to sleep. It's been quite a bit longer than 500k years since the shinobi walked the surface of Alchera.**

**Kaiha is the archaic pronunciation for **腕, **which means arm (though especially the upper arm), according to firefox addon Rikaichan. Modern pronunciation is ude according to the same addon. The jutsu is my Shukaku-less version of Gaara's Suna no Kaiwan [Monstrous Sand Arm]**

**Karyūken is an original taijutsu style wherein the user coats him or herself with fire chakra, adding fire damage to each punch or kick. The style is much like the Hyūga Jyūken [Gentle Fist] in that it heavily favours relentless attack, but where the Gentle Fist is an Earth-style taijutsu, the Fire Dragon Fist is a Fire-style taijutsu. The difference is that the Gentle Fist blocks attacks whereas the Fire Dragon Fist is more focused on dodging, in keeping with the elusive nature of fire. **

**Blending with the Uzuken [Whirlpool Fist], a style that likewise is an original creation, which focuses on flowing around your opponent to counter-attack using your opponent's momentum, in keeping with its Water theme, the Uzukaryūken, liberally translated as the Fist of the Whirling Fire Dragon, is the single-most offensive taijutsu style any of them know. **

**Eruptions are graded in ten classes, unimaginatively called Class-1 through Class-10. Class-10 is an extinction-level event. Classes 5 through 9 are merely genocidal events ****of varying intensity****, number 5 being slightly more severe than the Krakatoa eruption back in 1883. C****lasses 1 and 2 are on par with the eruption in Iceland a few years back that blocked most European air travel (Eyjafjallajökull). Not overly dangerous but very disruptive.**

**Parnack is ****_filled_**** with frequent class-5 eruptions. It's what makes the Yahg so badass. **

**My Shepard will be Paragade, by the way. Generally Paragon ideology but won't shy away from Renegade actions to accomplish this. **


	3. The Year Between II

**Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or Mass Effect.**

**Holy bajeebus! At the time of writing this AN there are 4400 views, 158 favs, 204 follows and 30 reviews! That's like, half my expectations for the entire fic met in two chapters, given the size of the Naruto/ME section (a grand total of 100 stories, mine included).**

**Thank you all :D Here, have a cookie. (::)  
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**I'm not entirely happy with this chapter, but if I don't push it out I'll just sit on it ad infinitum.**

**Updated 2014-12-06.  
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**The Ancients from Alchera**

Feet pounded a steady rhythm as a lone figure ran across the vast sand flat of Parnack's largest continent. Sand billowed in its wake, kicked up from the force of having a humanoid running at slightly over sixty kilometres per hour across its surface. Several curious sand-dwelling rodents emerged from the ground to look at the figure as it sped by, though most burrowed deeper, waiting for the figure to rush past their hiding place. The only things on Parnack that were heavy enough to thump the ground as they walked by were predators.

The figure itself, recognizable as Spectre Shepard to most everyone in the galaxy, noticed none of this. She used the relative tranquillity of the day's starting hours to process what she had learned that morning. Sure, her understanding of the entire fabric of reality had taken a hit when she was introduced to chakra, an energy capable of defying several laws of physics, including but not limited to, gravity, but it had hit home when the initial results from a DNA test had come in just two hours ago.

Taigun had, under some pretty damned close supervision by herself, taken a small blood sample to compare her new genetic code to her old one. The first pass at the data showed that her DNA had mutated from the well-known double helix into three oddly intertwined triple helices. Truth be told, it creeped her out something fierce. She didn't complain about the results though, her bones were stronger, her muscles were denser, her synaptic fire rate had gone through the roof – though Naruto claimed it was only slightly above average –, improving the speed at which she processed sensory input, which had a positive effect on her reflexes, among other things.

Her thoughts were broken as she spotted a disturbance at the edge of the sand flat. She scowled slightly; it wouldn't be the first time that Yahg got curious as to what was going on here. The last one was killed in a single hit by her teacher at the time, Kirabi. A lightning-enhanced lariat, appropriately named **Raiton: Rariatto** [Lightning Release: Lariat] and the Yahg was in pieces.

She turned around a put a finger on her forearm and released the seals on her. Her blond sensei had inscribed a sealing array there to increase 'resistance', as he had said. She soon found that he meant wind resistance. Initially, everything she did took tremendous effort. For the first few days it took all she had to move forward at a snail's pace. Yugito and Kokuo took advantage of that time to cram some chakra theory into her head. She then went back to the tree, still standing in all of its viridian glory even now, and spent a week trying to walk to its top.

'Course, after that Naruto has to rub in the fact that he's practically God – he created something from nothing, what else was she supposed to call him? – by creating a mountain-top lake at a whim for her to learn how to emulate Jesus and walk on water. That took her a month, and afterwards almost all her training was done on the water's surface.

She shook her head to focus on the present. Her eyes swivelled to focus on the disturbance almost directly in front of her, nearly twenty metres ahead of her. A hulking humanoid with black, leathery skin, eight beady eyes, a mouth that wouldn't be out of place on popular representations of demons, and two pointy protrusions from the top of its head that she guessed were ears was steadily walking towards her. She scowled again; she didn't have as many options to take it out as she liked. Her sword was back at the cave – an oversight she'd correct on future runs – and her kunai pouch was filled with the grand total of one kunai.

The Parnack environment meant that Yahg skin was remarkably fire-resistant, so that left piercing **Doton**. That in turn limited her options to a grand total of two jutsu: Rising Rock Pillars and the Earth Flow Spear. Once she had an opening, she'd either have a dead Yahg or a Yahg whose not-so-fireproof organs could be exposed to her flame, depending on whether she took out redundant organs or not.

Her hands came together to form seals, a plan of action having been made. The main difference between the two piercing jutsu was the number of spikes, and that made it easy to choose. Even if she hit dead-on with the single spike of the Flow Spears, the margin for error was simply unacceptable. The multiple spikes of the Rock Pillars, on the other hand, could at least cripple the Yahg if it failed to kill, making further combat much easier. Even with only one working leg, Yahg were not easy opponents to take out.

She formed the three handseals of the jutsu in under one and a half seconds – a new record – and slammed her hands to the ground as she yelled out, "**Doton: Ganchūsō! **[Earth Release: Rising Rock Pillars]" Seven spikes of hardened earth rose from directly beneath the Yahg, piercing its feet, knees, and gut as well as lifting it a little off the ground.

Thirty seconds later it was still twitching and trying to free itself, which meant that she missed the redundant organs. It mattered little, she still had her fire and now readily accessible organs to expose to it. She cackled softly as she released the chakra holding the spikes together, causing the Yahg to fall the half-metre to the ground. Stalking the short distance separating her and the struggling Yahg, she flew through the seven handseals belonging to her new favourite toy in slightly over three and a half seconds before inhaling deeply and taking aim at the Yahg's exposed organs. "**Katon: Gōkakyū! **[Fire Release: Great Fireball]" she bellowed as she spat a large ball of fire at the downed Yahg.

The ball of fire impacted the Yahg and for the first time Shepard heard a Yahg scream. She flinched and covered her ears. It was far higher than she'd expected, comparable to a pig's squeal though heavy bass undertones were audible. It grated on her ears like she was personally dragging a dying pig through the gates to the underworld. That impression wasn't helped by the heavy smell of sulfur emanating from the Yahg's cooking organs in addition to the more traditional scent of burning organs.

Even standing upwind, the three minutes that the Yahg pyre took to burn itself out were hell on her nose. She had no choice but to remain, needing to be certain that the Yahg was dead. When the fire had died and all that was left of the Yahg was a pile of ash, she turned and sprinted away back to the cave, desperately trying not to hurl.

Burning Yahg smelled so much worse than burning Batarian.

– – – – _Two Months Later, Six Months After Alchera, unidentified system – – – –_

An odd space station floated in space dangerously close to a red supergiant. It had none of the sleek elegance common to the Asari, the predatory lines often seen in Turian designs, or the more bulbous designs characteristic of Salarian and Volus architecture. Instead, it was essentially a giant spatula with a massive T-shaped protrusion close to the location where the curve began.

This odd structure is Cronos Station. Not appearing on any maps due to the star's periodic emissions that hid its presence even from the Geth Collective, Cronos Station was an anomaly that appeared to be perfectly harmless. Once every while a ship would dock or depart, but this was far from a frequent occurrence, and an outsider's eye could only conclude that it was some sort of highly classified governmental research base; a cipher, wrapped in an enigma, and smothered in super-secret sauce.

These outsiders would not be entirely wrong. Cronos Station was, as a matter of fact, a highly classified research facility. It just didn't belong to any one government.

Cronos Station was the centre of Cerberus' power, sometimes called the Seat of the Illusive Man. Inside Cronos Station, the Illusive Man – sometimes called Tim, though if he ever heard somebody say it their employment would be terminated post-haste – reigned supreme over the third-largest shadow empire of the galaxy, beaten only by the Shadow Broker and the Geth Collective.

A single short-range radio emission lanced from the station to the shuttle that had exited FTL in relatively close proximity, demanding identification. The sole inhabitant of the shuttle sighed as she opened the comm-link.

"Operative two-two-dash-fiver-alpha-niner-omega-four reporting in for FTF with IL, over," she responded without listening to what the radio operators said. She was here for a very specific purpose with the Illusive Man's full knowledge and approval, nor was it the first time she was called for a meeting at Cronos Station.

"Operative 22-5A9O4, you are cleared to dock at landing bay 21, over," the radio operator responded after a minute.

"Bay 21 acknowledged, control. Operative 22-5A9O4 out," she returned before she closed the connection and directed the shuttle to land at the aforementioned docking bay.

– – – –

The door of the shuttle opened with a hiss, and the five men watched as a very dignified woman walked out, her cool blue eyes assessing everything. For those who didn't know her, Miranda Lawson was the perfect ice queen and Cerberus operative.

He knew better. Miri and himself had some history, and he could see the slight sag at the edge of her right eye, the ever so slight dark patch near the bridge of her nose on the left side for what they were; signs of being run ragged. That was in addition to what she'd confided to him.

Everyone in Cerberus had a confidante registered, for the Illusive Man knew that people involved in top secret work that weren't allowed to vent without repercussions every once in a while became security hazards. The stress of keeping things secret from everyone they cared about reduced them to shells working at maybe half their full efficiency or they talked about their work to the wrong persons, forcing an early termination. He was her confidante, and she had raged and raved for a good three hours – a record for her – about the responsibilities piled upon her after she had failed to retrieve Shepard's corpse, though both of them were glad that Miranda was far too skilled and loyal to just disappear even in light of her biggest blunder.

"Jacob," she said in her usual icy tone, though he could detect the slight quiver that came from prolonged sleep deprivation. "The Illusive Man decided to send a welcoming committee?"

He nodded. "He did, new protocol after one of our arriving agents turned out to have Shadow Broker affiliated guests on board," was his succinct reply. Miranda scoffed

"Idiot," she said scornfully.

"Indeed," Jacob agreed. He turned and nodded to his squad of four. "Dismissed, gentlemen, I can take it from here."

"Sir, yes, sir," they replied as one with a salute before stalking off to the recreational area. They wouldn't actually enter it, naturally. They were to search the shuttle after he had led Miri away because no one was exempt, not even the Illusive Man. Jacob and Miranda started their trek to the Observatory, home to the Illusive Man's chair and the only location on the station that allowed a view of the star. Even the docking stations all faced away from the red supergiant.

"So what's this about, Miri?" Jacob asked quietly. "Still repercussions from Alchera?"

"Most likely," Miranda responded stiffly at the same volume. "Not that I blame him, truth be told. Recovering Shepard would have been beneficial to the extreme, even with her past negative experiences involving the Experimental Research Group."

"Even taking into account that you brought a humanoid alien whose age is counted in the millions?" Jacob asked incredulously.

"Yes, even with that," Miranda responded. "Contrary to popular belief, DNA sequencing and genetic mapping still takes a long time, especially the latter. That is actually part of why I'm here, to present our first quarterly report on the man who answers to Hidan, the self-proclaimed Jashin-sama no Yogensya."

"Yogensya?" Jacob asked curiously, not familiar with the word.

"Prophet," Miranda responded curtly. "Apparently the man follows the way of Jashin, a deity I've never heard of, who is apparently a God of Destruction, or maybe Chaos. They please their god by leaving death and destruction in their wake."

Jacob frowned as they turned a corner, entering a hallway leading to the only elevator leading directly to the Illusive Man's office. "That sounds similar to the Thug resurgence that we had to put down a decade or so ago, back on Earth. Assassins that performed their kills ritualistically to please their goddess... Kali, I believe it was."

"It does indeed," Miranda replied with a nod. "Were it not for the fact that he's clearly an Alchera native from before the planet froze over, I'd say he was human based on appearance alone. It is uncanny how much like us he is." She shrugged. "More fuel for the 'Protheans messed with evolution' conspiracy nuts, I guess."

Her hand reached up and pressed the button to call down the elevator. "I guess," Jacob said with a shrug. They waited in companionable silence as they waited for the elevator to arrive.

"This is where we part ways for now, Miri," Jacob said as the doors opened. Even if he was Miranda's confidante, they weren't allowed everywhere. Due to the confidante system, there were two clearance levels, 'physical entry' and 'information'. The elevator to the Illusive Man's office was very much outside his physical entry clearance unless explicitly ordered otherwise.

"We'll talk again soon, Jake," Miranda said, slipping into her old nickname for the dark-skinned soldier as she gave the machine instructions to deposit her at the Observatory.

Jacob gave her a two-fingered salute as the doors slid shut. "Sure thing, Miri. Just give me a beep if you want to rant for a while."

"Will do, Jacob," Miranda replied with a wan smile before the doors closed. She could hear the soft hum of the mass effect field enveloping the elevator. It wasn't the cheapest of solutions, but the person who decided that elevators should be equipped with their own mass effect fields to speed up elevator transit was a saint, in her opinion. The trip from where she was to Observatory took fifteen minutes a year ago, now it was done in three.

When she arrived at the top, the doors hissed open. She was greeted by a sight that most people would have proclaimed beautiful. A large portion of the view was taken up by the red supergiant that was the favoured environment for Cronos Station – because Cronos Station had to move once in a while, a stationary opponent is a dead opponent according to the Illusive Man – while the rest of the view was filled with the inky black void of space, interspersed by the bright specks of light of far-off stars. She wasn't poetic enough to proclaim the infinite void of space beautiful, but she acknowledged that it wasn't the worst of views. If only her boss wasn't in this very room, undoubtedly ready to punish her again for failing him on Alchera. He was rather petty that way, to be frank.

"Miranda," her boss greeted her from his chair in the exact middle of the Observatory. "Punctual as always." _At least he's still using my given name. I might actually make it out of here alive._

She nodded silently in response.

"Report," was his curt command.

"Subject 22-8941, Hidan," she said without preamble. "Found frozen, but alive, in a glacier on Alchera aproximately three months following the initiation of the search for Shepard, in the wake of a suspicious Class-3 volcanic event. The source of that event we've still not uncovered," Miranda stated with a small grimace. In light of the failure to retrieve Shepard not finding out what had caused the eruption was a small thing, but it grated on her nonetheless.

"Subject claimed immortality, and the investigating team has reason to believe him by now. We have vivisected him while alive and fully conscious – none of our sedatives work for more than fifteen minutes –, literally detached organs while he was cut open, and the subject remained coherent and the organs active. Destroying the detached organs caused a replacement organ to grow inside the subject."

The Illusive Man nodded once, though she could see the minute frown that meant he didn't like that she had risked the subject. "Any difficulties restraining the subject?"

"More than we'd like, sir. The subject's raw physical strength is enough to break through anything short of titanium bindings."

The Illsuive Man raised a single eyebrow. "Anything else, Miranda?"

Miranda nodded. "Three things, sir. The first is the subject's DNA." She tapped her omni-tool to project an image of the strange DNA. "Our DNA experts have classed this a triple tri-strand. Three intertwined triple helices. Sequencing and mapping is currently underway but not expected to bear fruit for quite some time due to the subject's alien physiology.

"The second point of curiosity is a pair of bioelectrical processes, one in the brain, one in the rest of the body, that do not appear to serve any real function at first glance. Further investigation has commenced because no one on the team believes that bioelectrical processes of such magnitude serve no function. We've just not found it yet.

"Third, there appears to be a secondary set of veins running throughout the subject's body. A strange energy is running through them, but we've held off on removing it since it's not an organ and we are uncertain if it will regrow like the organs do, or if we are capable of transplanting it without damage. That concludes our findings so far," Miranda finished her report in the same professional manner that she started it.

"I see," was all the Illusive Man said before he fell into thoughtful silence. Miranda started fidgeting slightly when the silence passed the five minute mark.

After a full fifteen minutes, the Illusive Man spoke up. "Operative Lawson, you are officially reassigned from Project Alchera to Project Overlord. Report to Aite no more than two weeks from now. You will, naturally, be expected to fulfil your other responsibilities in tandem with your work on Overlord. You will receive more details later. Dismissed."

"Yes, sir," was all she said as she swiftly turned on her heels and hurried back into the elevator. When the doors had closed, she sighed in relief. That had gone far better than she had hoped, though she didn't appreciate being assigned to work with that fool Archer. He was likely to throw caution to the wind and transform Project Overlord to the next instance of a mess similar to what Shepard dealt with when she hunted for Saren.

_Note to self: find a way to thank Shepard for cleaning up the house. S__afety precautions __a__re there for a reason __and those fools in Experimental Research had thrown them to the wind_. Most people would call her thoughts that Shepard had survived crashing on Alchera lunacy, but she'd seen the Spectre do impossible things, what was a little unscheduled, unassisted planetary descent?

A wave of fatigue swept over Miranda as the elevator made its way down. She shakily reached into a pocket and pulled out a syringe filled with a milky white-yellow substance. She sighed in bliss as the contents entered her bloodstream.

Thank God for stims.

– – – – _Two __Months Later, Eight Months After Alchera, __Parnack__– – – –_

A blond male and a red-headed female could be seen dancing in the sweltering summer's heat in the middle of the largest sand flat that graced the surface of Parnack. Their moves were swift, gracious, and without hesitation. Their balance was nigh perfect and their coordination flawless as the pair moved with and against the other.

Until one looked closer and realized that there were entirely too many kicks and punches being thrown to qualify their moving as a dance. The female aimed a punch at the male's gut only for the male to sidestep, lock the female's arm in place using his own arm and his body, before using the newly acquired leverage to throw the woman to the ground. The woman managed to free her arm as she was being redirected to the ground and rolled with the blow. Her feet lashed out during the roll towards the male's chin, who dodged the incoming appendages by cartwheeling away. The woman, now solidly on her feet, shrouded her entire body in fire before rushing the blond and calling out in a language not native to Parnack; "**Karyū Hakke: Rokujūyon ken! **[Fire Dragon Eight Trigrams: Sixty-Four Fists]" Her arms seemed to blur as she rained her fists upon her opponent's body, who sported a massive grin on his face.

Truly, Naruto mused as Shepard attempted to pound his internal organs to mush, their student had come a long way. Eight months ago she was essentially meat and bones, three months later she woke up on this hellish planet completely reconstructed, nine days after that she was tree-walking – more generally known as surface-clinging – with abandon, two weeks after that she was performing her training practically exclusively on water, thanks to a convenient crater on top of a nearby mountain, absolutely humongous chakra reserves, and a **Suiton: Bakusui Shōha **[Water Release: Exloding Water Colliding Wave] so that she could learn to walk on water. The other aspects of her training were highly focused on the practical shinobi arts; chakra control, ninjutsu, taijutsu, iryojutsu and genjutsu. Some chakra theory was thrown in and they made sure that her technological skills were maintained by pitting her against broken machinery and Taigun-created firewalls every few days, but the more traditional – and time-consuming – shinobi teachings like mathematics, ciphers, cryptography, anatomy, and stealth? All taken care of by her military education. Even language only needed a refresher rather than requiring starting from the beginning, apparently Shepard had a Japanese roommate for a few years and Japanese matched their native language perfectly, even down to the way it was written. Evolution was weird that way.

Potential pitfalls like a first kill were encountered before she even entertained the idea of going into the military, thanks to a slaver raid on her home colony when she was young. It may not have been the best circumstances to earn a first kill, but a first kill was a first kill and they weren't going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Mentally she already was a high-level Jōnin, if not a Kage-level ninja, she just needed her shinobi skills brought up to par. Naruto thanked his lucky stars that the **Kage Bunshin** was perfectly capable of transferring muscle memory in addition to knowledge, it made everything go so much faster. Shepard only needed to do the kata to ensure that she had the required flexibility, actually practising the kata was done by her clones, even if she could only have two up simultaneously for eight hour stretches because of the mental overload from dispelling clones. They had decided not to teach her the sealing arts due to simple time constraints. They only had two years before shit was going to start hitting the fan and Fūinjutsu required years of dedicated study unless one was an Uzumaki with **Kage Bunshin **available, in which case it only took approximately three months to become a master.

Shepard had taken to nin- and tai-jutsu like a fish took to water, and progressed at a speed beyond even their most optimistic estimates, though her genjutsu was limited to dispelling and casting the most basic of illusions. She had mastered the first stage of earth _and_ fire manipulation in a month, where even the fastest of them had taken two – Naruto counted his cumulative time taken utilizing **Kage Bunshin**, rather than the clock-time passed – for a single nature. Naruto simply took it as proof he was _just that awesome_ with the **Banbutsu Sōzō**. Three and a half months later, she had completed stage two of each element and was ready to be introduced to A- and S-rank jutsu of each element, thanks in no small part to the Kage-level reserves he'd given her when her body was recreated practically from the ground up. They left her mind intact initially, but the reconstruction forced the brain to modify itself to include a chakra network and the associated neural process to generate the Yin part of chakra. This was, apparently, allowed by the people Up There.

Naruto shook his head to re-focus on the present, where a heavily panting Shepard stood a short ways away. Her hands were raised in the traditional **Karyūken **default stance – right fist in front of her sternum so that she could block attempt to strike at her solar plexus, her left fist in front of her, shoulder at 45 degrees to her body, elbow at 90 degrees, left foot in front, right foot behind at a 45 degree angle – and her face was trained on his own sternum so that she could see every limb on his body clearly. Many people got by by looking their opponent in the eye and reading their intentions that way, but Shepard wouldn't have that luxury in an existence where polarized faceplates were common.

He supposed he would have been near-death from Shepard's assault... if he had organs. There were distinct advantages to being a mass of pure chakra in that he didn't need to eat, drink, sleep, or even have organs. Naturally he _could_ give himself working innards instead of just projecting a human appearance with his chakra, but he only really did so when he was alone with Yugito. Sex was too good to pass up, regardless of form. _Thinking of forms, _the blond thought, _we still haven't shown Shepard our full beast forms. _He chuckled darkly, his tails swishing behind him in anticipation. _That's going to be a great surprise once we finally do reveal them. __Oh the look she'll wear._

He was nothing if not fair, so he would do nothing for a few seconds to represent a hard-to-kill opponent that just got hit by Shepard's brutal assault. He felt justified in doing so, despite the brutality – and there were _very_ few taijutsu moves more brutal than the Sixty-Four Fists of the Eight Trigrams, Fire Dragon style, and all of the ones that were required five or more open Celestial Gates – he was certain that someone like the Five Kage, Kabuto or Madara would have lived through it, though not without injury. His grin widened when he saw Shepard fly through the Monkey, Boar, and Tiger handseals, recognizing the technique that she was going to use to capitalize on his self-imposed immobility. She inhaled deeply as she held the Tiger seal and kneaded her chakra, and brought her right hand to her mouth. She bellowed, "**Katon: Gōka Messhitsu!** [Fire Release: Great Flame Demolisher]," spitting a large sphere of flame in his direction. The jutsu was an upgraded Great Fireball in every facet of the jutsu except chakra cost, requiring approximately six times as much chakra as the fireball.

Naruto's grin split his face from ear to ear, quite a bit more literally than mortals were capable of, as he held out his right hand; he'd seen what he wanted to see in the two hours that this no holds barred spar had lasted. "**Gakidō: Fūjutsu Kyūin **[Preta Path: Blocking Technique Absorption Seal]," he calmly said and a translucent spherical barrier sprung to life around him. When the flame of Shepard's jutsu hit the barrier, it shrunk until all that was left was a panting redhead barely capable of standing on her own feet and a grinning blond who looked as fresh as he always did.

"Excellent job, Shepard," Naruto commended her. "You've shown all that you need to start the next part of your training and then some." He threw her a ration bar, created moments before with his chakra. It wasn't a perfect substitute for actual food, but it'd do until they could get food that didn't try to kill you with bacteria and viruses even after roasting it.

"Thanks, sensei," Shepard got out between pants as she caught the bar with ease. It was the definition of tasteless, but it was stuffed full of everything she needed to get through the day. "So, what is the next part of training?" she asked curiously once she had finished eating and regained her breath.

"First off, we're starting on **Yōton **in a moment," he said, eliciting a smile from his student. "Secondly, we've finally figured out an insulating material that won't allow **Raiton** to pass it by so you'll be learning that. Thirdly, we're going to do the unnecessary but very useful stage three of elemental manipulation." A grin appeared on his face that promised a lot of pain in her future. "Trust me, that's going to hurt."

"How so, sensei?" she asked. Surely it couldn't be as bad as the torture they called training, could it? "Also, why would **Raiton** bypass insulating material? It's electricity isn't it?"

"Not exactly," he said with a small shake of his head. "**Raiton **is electrically charged chakra that only gets converted to lightning laced with chakra when it leaves the immediate vicinity of your body, same as with the other elements. Unfortunately, your shield generator is inside the area where it is still electrically charged chakra, and thus the comparison is far more similar to using an electrically insulating material to block thermal energy transfer. However, the chakra is still electrically charged so it still shorts out your generator. Something to do with band gaps and forbidden energy states becoming allowed, I didn't pay a lot of attention to Taigun-kun's techno-babble," he finished with a shrug. Shepard sweatdropped at his attitude but nodded to show she understood what was going on, and probably better than the blond did.

"And the third stage of elemental manipulation?" she asked curiously with a hint of impatience. Naruto had that tendency to answer the second question first and never answer the first unless you pressed him for it. Anderson did, too. Perhaps it was something that came with age?

"Unlike stage 1 and 2, training for stage 3 kills more people than jutsu performed by people that accomplished it," he said seriously. "For example, stage 3 for fire requires being set on fire. You will have completed the training when you can manipulate the flame to not burn you."

"Isn't that the same as the chakra shroud for the **Karyūken**?"

He shook his head. "No, it's not. Your chakra is a part of you, and the only way your chakra can hurt yourself is if you overload on chakra. The shroud used in the **Karyūken** will not harm you as long as you keep the flames orange or cooler. Only if you concentrate the flames enough that they become hot enough to turn white or even black, not that the latter is in mortal reaches unless you have a **Sharingan**, do you run the risk of burning yourself with your own fire chakra shroud. Normal fire will burn you regardless, unless you infuse your chakra with the fire so that it won't. This is not as easy as it sounds.

"I know of three hundred people who have attempted it. All but fourteen died from their injuries even with skilled medics supervising."

Shepard gulped, and she almost didn't ask her next question. "And the other natures?"

"**Doton** requires you to cause an earthquake of at least magnitude eight with nothing but your chakra. **Raiton** requires that you be struck by lightning without it striking any of your organs or overloading your nervous system. **Yōton **requires you to bathe in lava without getting melted," the blond replied. Shepard gulped again, that didn't sound entirely sane or healthy. _Then again, it _is _Naruto I'm dealing with. He left sanity behind in the dust a long time ago._

"If you can manage all of them before we leave Parnack, I'll instruct you in one of my personal jutsu, the **Yōton: Rasenryūkuchi** [Lava Release: Spiraling Dragon Mouth]." He held out a hand, palm up, in Shepard's direction.

"So let's get started, shall we?" he asked with a tilt of his head. Shepard nodded and grabbed his hand.

"**Hiraishin**," Naruto said, and with a yellow flash they relocated to a nearby volcano.

– – – – _Two__ Months Later, __One Year__ After Alchera, Parnack – – – –_

"Soooo," Shepard drawled nervously through the full-face gas mask, the only thing she wore other than a fireproof hair cover, as her two female teachers tied her to a large wooden structure – essentially a large rectangular platform made from wooden beams, the base of which was enveloped with straw so that it would burn swiftly – using specially created fireproof rope while her male teachers were out and about messing with Yahg. Taigun kept a vigilant eye on the horizon for signs of potentially interfering Yahg. "Remind me again why stage three of elemental manipulation is necessary?" Shepard tried to move her fingers, but the rope was tied very tight and she failed miserably.

"Completing stage three means your control is good enough that you can start launching jutsu of that element without vocalisation or even a single handseal," Yugito replied calmly. She put action to word by turning her head away from the structure and launching a thin stream of flame that quickly widened to an absurd width. Shepard recognized is as the **Katon: Gōka Mekkyaku **[Fire Release: Great Flame Annihilation], launched without so much as a whisper or a twitch of her hands. She couldn't help but whistle appreciatively.

"Silent and seal-less? That can't be free," Shepard said. Nothing that good ever came without having strings attached.

Yugito nodded. "It's not. Aside from having a very good chance of dying, jutsu cast without hand-seals or vocalization guzzle chakra. The exact increase is unknown because no one ever bothered to find out, but you can expect to use ten to fifteen times - at minimum - the amount of chakra per jutsu or per second of every jutsu."

"Then why would anyone undergo stage three in the first place?" she asked incredulously, while idly wondering why there was an increase in the first place. _Perhaps the seals and words are a form of mnenonic, and by skipping them you stop your subconscious from helping you? _She vaguely recalled her biotic instructor mentioning something along similar lines as a reason why silent biotics were reserved only for Asari Commandoes with centuries of experience. A stray thought hit her at this point; _are biotics and chakra related? _

"Because it furthers understanding of the element," Yugito explained patiently. "Allowing you to waste less chakra when casting elemental jutsu, as well as help you decide what jutsu to use when. With your limited chakra reserves, there is such a thing as overkill. Additionally, it gives you an excellent trump card in case you're ever captured. An enemy familiar only with the concept of jutsu requiring vocalization and handseals will not expect you to be able to do so without either."

Shepard nodded, seeing the logic in the statement. She wasn't entirely sure she wanted to do this, but with the knots used by the pair of women she figured she didn't really have a choice. She let out a resigned sigh.

"So what exactly do I have to do here? Naruto wasn't very clear."

"Your sole task is to prevent the flames from burning you, even as they lap against your skin," Kokuo said. "You are to reach out to the chakra present in the flame using naught but your raw chakra, and prevent it from harming you. Use of elemental chakra is strictly prohibited."

"And how does that help in control of **Katon**? Is the chakra in natural fire that different from, say, natural earth?" Shepard asked curiously, never having bothered with feeling the natural chakra around her. She was busy enough as is.

Kokuo nodded. "It is. The chakra in nature takes on characteristics of the element that it comes into contact with. By allowing the chakra of natural fire to envelop you, attuning your chakra to it, and making it respond to your will, you reach a far more intimate understanding of the nature of fire and can use fire jutsu without handseals or vocalisation, at the aforementioned cost. It is possible to reach sufficient levels of control to accomplish this without completing the third stage, however that requires time we are not in possession of."

"Right," Shepard said, trying to keep the nerves out of her voice. As much as she was a not-so-closet pyromaniac she wasn't looking forward to actually being set on fire.

Neither Kokuo or Yugito were fooled by Shepard's false bravado, but elected to not say anything. Yugito grabbed a sealing scroll and unsealed a Yahg-made item that was perfect for the situation: a triple-barrel flame thrower. She could easily ignite the pyre on her own, but then it wouldn't be natural fire and that would defeat the point of the exercise. She took aim and fumbled slightly with the trigger, it was designed for hands twice the size of her own. "We'll keep watch, Shepard. Good luck," Yugito said as she pulled the trigger for all of two seconds, aiming at the base of the large wooden structure. The flames washed over the wood and straw, easily igniting the latter. Within a few minutes, the entire structure was ablaze. They could vaguely hear Shepard's screaming, muffled by the gas mask, over the roar of the raging flames. Yugito grimaced. She did this herself before she became the new Nibi and it took three hours of agony before she was capable of atuning the flames to her chakra.

_This_, Shepard thought, _surely has to be what Hell is like_. The raw heat blasting her tied-up body was threatening to send her to Morpheus' embrace even as the flames themselves embraced her with their fiery hugs of excruciating agony. Shepard lost track of time as she yelled herself hoarse from the unadulterated pain of having her skin burned off. The loud roar of the raging inferno filled her ears even as her eyes were entranced by the alluring dance of red and orange in front of her eyes in an ever shifting, ever changing, phantasmagoria eventually allowing her to tear her mind's conscious processes away from the pain, though her subconscious still decided that screaming was a good idea. The newly found clarity of mind allowed Shepard to send out tendrils of her chakra to the flame around her, trying to make contact with the very essence of fire.

The flame rebuffed her by darting around the tendrils. She who was probably the greatest champion of the flame – taking practically every opportunity to set things ablaze if it wouldn't compromise the mission – was rebuffed by the very element she adored. She sent out more tendrils with more force, making sure to increase their width so her fiery opponent wouldn't be able to flow around the tendrils that easily.

Once again, she failed. Again and again she tried with tendrils of ever increasing width and force, and again and again she failed. The flame darted under and around her feelers, never touching or connecting. Ever elusive and unattainable.

Shepard froze and wanted to smack herself. _I truly am an idiot sometimes_, she mused idly. _Fire is aggressive, elusive, and ethereal, so to capture the fire I, too, need to be elusive, aggressive, and ethereal. Brute force doesn't solve everything, much as I wish it sometimes did. _

Her next tendrils were much thinner and sent out far more delicately than anything she had tried so far. She allowed her tendrils to approach the chakra in the fire, which once again danced out of the way. This time, though, she was ready and her tendrils started dancing alongside the chakra she sought to attune herself with. The fire seemed to respond to her efforts, and she cancelled all but one tendril so that she could focus on the single tendril that seemed to have picked up a dance partner. They looped and swirled around each other in a complex dance. At the pyre's side, Yugito grinned. It seemed her student had figured out the trick, and it only took her two hours or so. Attuning chakra was a two-way process.

It was in the middle of a figure eight that it happened. Shepard felt the fire connect with her chakra, and the most incredible feeling of _understanding_ came over her. For a brief moment, she felt like she _was_ the flame; aggressive, elusive, ethereal, yet lazy and hungry; always seeking more to consume in the easiest way possible. For the shortest of instants, she was _one_ with fire, and it felt incredible. It felt like she could take on everything and everyone in her path, obliterating all her enemies with ease. Burn away their presence in the mortal coil with nary a thought, or engulf their very essence in a raging conflagration that wouldn't even leave enough to pass through the Gates.

And then the pain returned despite her successful efforts to stop the flames from harming her. She may have been momentarily distracted from it by seeking to attune herself to fire, but her skin was still halfway to peeling off from the heat. She needed to get off, but the rope tying her to the wooden beams was specifically made to be able to withstand hundreds of thousands of degrees Celsius. She struggled a bit in vain hope that her newfound elemental friend would burn the rope regardless, but she got an idea when she felt a little bit of the structure giving way.

The rope may have been fireproof, the structure that she was tied to wasn't. She concentrated the flames on the wood holding the rope in place, taking care not to burn too much of the wood too fast or the entire structure could come tumbling down. Within moments, the wood had crumbled to ash, not capable of taking the white-hot flames Shepard had directed to then. Muscles and tendons screaming from the burns, she slowly stood up and stumbled off the still burning pyre.

_Three more to go_, she thought as she succumbed to the blissful darkness of unconsciousness.

– – – –

**Original Jutsu: **

**Karyū Hakke: Rokujūyon Ken**; this taijutsu move is essentially a **Jyūken Hakke: Rokujūyon Shō **[Gentle Fist Eight Trigrams: Sixty-Four Palms]using fists instead of palms, except one aims to do damage directly to internal organs in place of the chakra network. Unless the user has a Byakugan, knowledge of the opponents anatomy is required for the attack to do maximum damage.

– – – –

**A/N: I don't quite remember if Cerberus bases going rogue – or taking unsanctioned measures to get results – was the canon explanation (it's been a while since I played ME2) for their cockups, but in every one of the fanfics that use it, it's almost immediately dismissed by Shepard as ludicrous. So I wondered, _what if Cerberus aren't total idiots and those projects _were _taking unsanctioned measures__? _Besides, an intelligent antagonist is so much healthier for the story than a dumb one that gets curbstomped. **

**The Illusive Man is still not pleased at Miranda for failing to retrieve Shepard's body, and is therefore not exactly thinking clearly. Considering Cerberus is essentially a revenge-trip against non-humans – in my opinion –, that's not an out of left field reaction. **

**The Thug resurgence (mind the capital T) mentioned by Jacob is actually the group that Jashinism is based on, the Thuggee, according to the naruto wikia. I did some additional research, agreed with the statement, and used it. **

**Next Chapter: A glimpse at the rest of the galaxy trawling along, and Shepard's graduation exam. There's a reason I didn't have B appear that much in these few chapters (other than my difficulty writing proper dialogue for him), his main responsibility was ensuring that more than a few Yahg tribes would band together to take the group out. Do not expect the Yahg to feature much when the group leaves Parnack due to massive population reduction. **


	4. The Years Between III

**Disclaimer: I do not own Mass Effect or Naruto. **

**A big thanks to reviewer Trife for pointing out that I was making Shepard rather overpowered. This chapter, plus edits I made to the previous one, should address most of that. **

**I moved translations to a bottom footnote starting this chapter to decrease breaks in flow. If the translation is not a surprise I save for later, it will be listed there.**

**The Ancients From Alchera**

Whatever happens, excluding galactic extinction events spanning all lifeforms that can even remotely be called 'alive', the galaxy as a whole moves on. While many lives _were_ altered in the wake of the Sovereign's attack on the Citadel a month ago and the destruction of the SSV Normandy three weeks later, most were at worst peripherally affected and continued about their lives the way they had always done. For the vast majority, that meant that they loved, argued, had kids, got married or divorced, and generally tried to go through the motions of life to achieve a somewhat happy conclusion. These lives were otherwise utterly unremarkable. A handful had lives worth recording for a few moments; those with uncommon or dangerous jobs, those with exotic diseases, and those who were in the right place at the right time to get some limelight before once again fading into obscurity.

And then there was the rest; those very few individuals whose life was worthy of being called 'plot'. The members of this last group all had something special about them that set them apart from the common person. Whether they were criminal masterminds responsible for the stability of the most law-less region of space, Black Ops agents that had attracted the eyes of the Norns, or something more mundane; all of them had in common the fact that they were politically significant or were involved in politically significant events. Another common occurrence among those with plot-worthy lives was that they tended to gravitate towards another. As friends, lovers, or bitter enemies, they couldn't help but interact.

It should therefore come as no surprise to anyone that the Citadel, the so-called 'Heart of the Galaxy', and the Omega Asteroid – often called the 'Terminus Citadel' – housed a fair number of those few individuals. It should come as even less of a surprise that communication between the Citadel and Omega was frequent, and frequently highly encrypted. What _would_ surprise most people, had they known about one particular highly-encrypted channel on one particular day slightly over a month after Sovereign's assault on the Citadel, was the identity of the two individuals. Both were high-profile, purple-skinned Asari in positions of leadership, but all similarities ended there. Where one of them was dressed conservatively, holding a glass of fine Thessian vintage and held herself with all the demeanour of nobility, the other wore a slightly revealing black leather jumpsuit with contrasting white leather jacket, preferred human vodka for its nice kick while not being as dangerous as ryncol, and carried herself with the air of a hardened criminal. The first had striking stormy grey-green eyes that showed the permanent serenity she was known for, but if one looked deeper they would see that she gazed upon existence with shrewdness found in very, very few. The other had misty blue eyes reflecting the ocean near which she was born, but there was no serenity shown in their depths. There was a hardness in them that came only with centuries of experience in dealing with the underbelly of civilization.

"_Are you absolutely certain of this, Celia?" _the blue-eyed Asari asked with narrowed eyes in response to something the other had said. "_You realize this is going to be extremely bad for business, I hope?" _

"I trust in Reah, Aria," Celia replied, somewhat testily. "She said that there was a ninety-nine point five percent match."

"_Damnit,"_ Aria said bluntly. "_Reah does know better than to fuck with either of us, so she wouldn't have."_ Celia watched stonily as Aria slammed a hand on a nearby table, slightly denting the surface. A harsh sound could be heard as the vase's shards spread all over Aria's apartment and Celia could not help but give a small chuckle. Perhaps now she would purchase a more beautiful vase _and_ not put it near the edge of a table? "_How long, Celia?" _Aria eventually asked once she calmed down a minute later.

"Two years, six months, and thee days in Galactic Standard time according to the latest projections. Give or take a month, assuming the original data is, in fact, accurate."

"_That's _something _at least," _Aria responded. "_Even if it isn't all that long, __it's enough time to get back into shape and clean ship __over here__. __I assume you'll be coercing the others to start R&D?" _

Celia nodded. "Naturally, even if I can't mention our enemy by name I'll think of something."

Aria gave a satisfied nod of her own. "_Good. In the meantime, since you will likely not do so, I'll be hiring Quarians. A whole __fucking __lot of Quarians. __Maybe __then __we can actually get something done in those two and a half years.__"_

Celia raised a painted-on eyebrow – such clever little things the humans introduced to the galaxy – at Aria's statement. Utilizing the technological skills of the Quarians was an angle that she'd completely overlooked, but could generate some very good results. It was such a shame that hiring Quarians was so politically inconvenient, and she couldn't afford to give the Matriarchs a reason to replace her at such a critical junction. All the candidates to replace her were excellent choices for peace-time governing, she'd give them that, but they would not fare well with what was to come. "Will you need assistance in meeting their price? Quarians don't work purely for credits, you know."

"_Of course I know, and I've got a few ships lying around that'll help seal the deal," _Aria said with a dismissive wave of her hand. "_Nothing overly fancy for the most part, but __the oldest ship is younger than _anything_ in the Flotilla__."_

"I was just checking, as the humans would say. They may ask for more than ships, and I don't recall you talking about having uncolonised dextro planets just lying about," Celia said, placing a slight sarcastic lilt on the last three words. Aria scowled.

"_I don't, but it'll be fine. I know how to play Quarians, Celia." _

"I was not suggesting otherwise, Aria," Celia said serenely with a hint of amusement on her face. Even after all this time, it was still fun raising Aria's hackles, though the list of people that could do that and get away with it was exceedingly small and featured her own name at the top. "I was merely ensuring that you'd covered all options and possibilities. Our very existence as a species is on the line, after all."

"_Indeed,"_ Aria responded once she was done gritting her teeth. She never did like it when someone inferred she wasn't capable or prepared, even if that person was Celia. _I hope you do realize there'll be _consequences_for your ribbing __later, __c'taela_, Aria thought with an internal cackle. Outwardly, her expression softened ever so slightly, which would have most people scrambling to find the real Aria for this one was obviously a fake. Celia was not most people. _"Hang in there, alright?"_

"I will," Celia replied in a soft but firm voice. "I don't intend to be on the losing side of this conflict,_c'taela_." She glanced at the chronometer and sighed. "It's time to get back to work. Goddess guide you and brighten your day._"_

"_Nor do I. __Goddess grant you the wisdom to walk the path of life without obstacles, c'taela," _Aria responded in kind. She watched as Aria leaned forward and winked with a mischievous grin before the screen went blank. She shivered slightly, the last time Aria disconnected a call like that it led to events that left her unable to properly sit down for a week.

Celia rose gracefully from her chair, her long robe with traditional embroidery – even if the material was not, simply because human silk was so vastly superior to any Asari produce – gently dropping down to her ankles. She set off at a brisk pace that reflected the speed of her thoughts. _Now, how to get Valern and Sparatus on board?_ Numerous arguments were proposed and rejected in the time it took her to walk from her chair to her private skycar, before she finally settled on something that should work. She only really needed one of the two to comply, though both would be preferable for the sake of galactic unity. She didn't doubt that Anderson, who looked like a shoe-in for the new Human seat since he had Shepard's approval, would agree with her. Anderson trusted Shepard, and this was something stemming from a warning given by Shepard.

"_The Reapers are coming, Madam Councillor. Hundreds upon hundreds of behemoths equally as durable as Sovereign are headed here to kill us all."_

Councillor Celia Tevos had her argument to convince Sparatus and Valern.

They had encountered only one Sovereign, true, but any race capable of building something like Sovereign wouldn't have stopped at just one, would they?

– – – –

"Fucking hell, I did not need that right now," Aria groused as she worked several kinks from her shoulders. "Bloodhounds at the gates, mercs starting to run rampant throughout the streets, and now giant fucking metallic squids from Dark Space intent on ruining everything?

"Fuck. That. If it was anyone other than Celia and Reah I'd probably have kicked their asses before the first word came out of their mouth." A moment's pause. "Well, except for Liselle," she amended. She ruthlessly quashed the pending distracting thoughts of her daughter and concentrated on the immediate problem; mercs. Specifically the Blood Pack, Eclipse, and Blue Suns. The Talons weren't causing problems, their leader was wise enough to adhere to Omega's only rule; Do Not Fuck With Aria T'Loak.

The Blood Pack was getting bolder lately, going to places they had no business being, and needed a reminder of their place on Omega. The Eclipse were slowly doing much the same, often making hostile contact with the Blood Pack that regularly killed more bystanders than they did mercs, and the Blue Suns were in the shadows egging both groups on while only being peripherally involved in the combat. Gavorn could deal with the local Eclipse chapter, led by a Salarian named Jaroth. For all his bluster, he had no biotics and was technologically inept by Salarian standards. He knew how to run a tight ship and possessed skill with weapons well above Salarian standards for good, but so was Lieutenant Gavorn. More than a few dancers were former Commandos so she did not foresee any issue taking the local Eclipse down a peg or three unless they were hiding Commandos of their own. She was pretty damn sure they weren't, but she didn't get where she was without being cautious. The Blood Pack, on the other hand, _required_ her personal attention. While Garm's minions may not have been much of anything at all, Garm himself was an accomplished Battlemaster. He was biotically powerful enough to contend with her and had freaky fast regeneration, even by Krogan standards. She needed to spend a little while lubricating her biotics, and then she would deal with the Blood Pack situation personally. Hopefully, her show of force would enlighten the Blue Suns to back off. If it didn't, then she would deal with them too. She doubted she needed to, Tarak was more intelligent than his predecessor and displayed a capacity for logical thought uncommon to Batarians outside of the Heaven and Celestial Caste or SIU personnel.

A massive shitstorm was coming and she would brook no dissent among her ranks. _Omega will not fall_, she silently vowed. She had sunk far too many hours into this place, carving out a not-so-little slice of galactic space to rule over to let it fall to _anything_, including metallic space-squids with delusions of divinity.

But before she could deal with any of that, she had to get back into shape. It had been far too long since she took the time to practice biotics, and she would need her biotics running smoothly again if she was going to tussle with Garm. He was old enough to potentially be more powerful than she was – in fact, she was pretty sure he was more powerful than her even if she _had_ kept up with her training –, but she had an edge; 'finesse' was not a word found in many Krogan vocabularies, while the Asari _prided_ themselves on finesse.

She lifted her omni-tool's microphone to her mouth. "Grizz, I'll be at my range for the next hour. No interruptions," she barked at her bodyguard. She shut down her omni-tool without waiting for an answer and walked into her personal practice range less than a minute's walk from her apartment.

Flinging her jacket onto a nearby table, she performed a few stretches to get the blood flowing. After she was done she stuck her hand out towards one of the targets. A light blue _something_ – vaguely oval in form, but there any definition ended – rushed towards it, and when it made contact it was pulled towards her. A grin lit up her face as she snapped her fingers and a dark blue, nearly black, orb sped from her hand towards the now air-borne target. Upon impact it detonated with an ever so satisfying _boom. _She could feel the shockwave of the biotic explosion rumbling through her chest, and she revelled in the reverberations going through her ribs. It had been far too long since she used her biotics for something more than looking impressive. With a satisfied nod, she flicked her hand at the target, specifically crafted to be able to withstand biotic explosions, and another light blue _something_ rushed towards it. When it made contact the target was hurled away, impacting with a sickening crunch on the far wall mere moments later. She clenched her outstretched hand and a **Singularity** made its way down the range. She gave a mental command for it to stop when it was at the desired location, and clicked her tongue when she saw it continue to move for a full second after she told it to stop, though it did stop at a location sufficiently close to the other targets present at the range that they were pulled into the singularity. "Damnit, I'm more rusty than I thought," she groused. She dropped her outstretched fist, and with her other hand flung her personally created biotic attack at the target trapped in the singularity. The **Flare**'s unique effect of strengthening biotic detonations – in addition to massive damage from impact – was seen when the target was shredded into tiny little bits. She glared at the scorched steel left behind by the detonation, thoroughly annoyed. _That wasn't nearly as powerful as I __was capable of even a century ago__. __Fucking hell I allowed the rust to pile up._

In rapid succession, she ran through the rest of her Commando exercises; sustaining multiple S**ingularity** fields at once, detonating more than one biotic effect using a single trigger – though multiple primers, no one was good enough to let a single biotic primer explode more than once –, steering **Warp** fields mid-flight, and her favourite exercise; sustaining multiple biotic fields, from **Singularity **to **Lift**, while manoeuvring several **Warps** to detonate all of them in one go. Her maximum before she lost control was six fields for two minutes plus two **Warps**, though that was mostly academic. She needed a meditative state to get that many effects going simultaneously, making it absolutely useless for combat. Near the end of the hour she sat down while a bottle of water and seethed in light of her performance. It was absolutely pathetic for an Asari with two hundred years as a Huntress and another three as a Commando before she took control of Omega at 650, a century ago.

She had barely half of the control she had two centuries ago, though her power hadn't decreased as much as she initially feared. Fortunately, re-acclimating the body to high levels of biotics was easier than acclimating the body for the first time.

The amount of time she would need to get back into shape depended on how swiftly the mercs got the message to stay the fuck down and not mess with the tentative order she had managed to achieve on her station after she took over the lead spot, but she figured she could get pretty far before the ETA counted down all the way to zero.

She dismissed the biotic fields currently active on the range, and sent a message to alert the maintenance crew while cooling off. She had Quarians to hire, mercs to deal with, and resources to consolidate in light of the coming shitstorm. _Omega will _not _fall, _she repeated to herself with a determined glint in her eye. Making a mental note to order her Commando dancers to keep up their practive, she walked out of the practice range and made her way into her sanctum sanctorum; Afterlife. It was time to get to work.

– – – – _Two Years Post-Alchera, Parnack – – – –_

"Alright, Shepard," Naruto said excitedly. "It's almost time for your graduation exam."

She eyed him warily from where she sat on the cave's floor. She remembered what happened the last time he talked about an exam. And the one before that, and the one before _that_. As it turned out, her first kill of a Yahg had been something of a fluke, despite – or because of – the ease with which she took him down. Due to the Yahg culture, only the least able-bodied individuals were sent on scouting missions. The one she encountered was in possession of particularly fragile skin, in addition to the standard reduced muscle tone all Yahg scouts had _and_ catching him completely by surprise.

So when she was pitted against a duo of fully capable Yahg two months later, she got her ass handed to her. She had responded to the Yahg charge with a **Doton: Ganchūsō**, much the same as with the first one – why fix what isn't broken, right? –, and received the nasty surprise of the spikes not piercing at all, though she was sure that the Yahg felt something. Much like standing barefoot on a Lego block, it doesn't pierce but sweet spirits above does it hurt.

While the Yahg charge had not been halted, she should have been capable of reacting in time to dodge the swiping claws of the two individuals, but she had lulled herself into a state of complacency, absolutely certain the technique would work to stop them as it did the first. So when it didn't, she couldn't react fast enough and paid for it. She had allowed the two Yahg to close to ten metres and she learned then the hard way that Yahg were almost entirely muscle and far faster than their form gave them any right to be. She took two massive swipes to her chest and gut that flung her a few feet before she could defend herself, and the hits would have killed her without her new compartmented organs. Even so, ad she not been in the presence of Kokuo she still would have been likely to bleed out before she got medical attention. It was then that the Yahg made a fatal error; they assumed their prey was down and out and stalked their way to her bleeding body. Had they rushed her and started eating, there would have been very little she or Kokuo could do – though she was certain Kokuo could take both of them out before they actually started to eat –, but they gave her the time she needed to knead lightning chakra and put her hand in the Snake seal. It was possibly the most foolish thing she could do at that point, but she wanted to end the conflict on her terms – damn the consequences – and tried firing a **Raiton: Gian **with only the single handseal out of five required by the technique. Looking back it was a miracle it didn't backfire, but right then she didn't care and only wanted to reduce the two Yahg to mincemeat using the high-power flashy jutsu she had learned the week before. In that she succeeded, but the False Darkness wasn't a cheap technique to begin with and without vocalization it was even more of a chakra draining monster, so she when she woke up a week later, she was informed she damn near killed herself.

"_Congratulations, Shepard," Kokuo said dryly as she sat aside her bed. "You have managed to come close to terminating your time on this plane of existence. Again." _

_Shepard gulped. A Kokuo that wasn't serene was a _dangerous_ Kokuo, and if she wasn't far too tired to move she would be running for the hills, regardless of its futility. She learned her lesson the last time she encountered Kokuo like this. For all her newfound power, Kokuo was always happy to remind her that she and the rest of the Tailed Beasts were a _lot_ stronger still. Before Kokuo could start her rant, a shadow appeared at the entrance to her little slice of space._

"_Give her a rest, Kokuo," a voice called out, saving her from Kokuo's tirade. She craned her head in an attempt to find out who had rescued her from the eruption of Mt. Kokuo, at least for now, for her mind was hazy enough to not immediately recognize the speaker. Her neck disagreed with her intention and violently made that disagreement known. Kokuo huffed slightly and left the pair alone. The newcomer walked to her bed and she now recognized the unruly mop of blond crowning the man's head._

"_Didn't I tell you that Yahg scouts are physically the weakest of their tribe?" Naruto asked admonishingly as he stood near her bed. _

_She glared at him. _Now_ he informed her of that little titbit? "No, you didn't," she responded with venom in her tone. _

"_Oh," was all Naruto responded with, owlishly blinking a few times. Apparently, _he_ was certain he _had_ told her that. After a minute, he shrugged before helpfully saying, "Well, consider yourself warned from now on. From what I gathered, the Yahg you killed almost a year ago had particularly soft skin. It's to do with keeping their able-bodied warriors fresh for combat and finding a use for those that aren't fit for the Yahg way of fighting, even after the Yahg invented gunpowder-based firearms."_

_She scowled at him for his reticence in giving her vital information. That would have been extremely useful to know, though she supposed there was a valuable lesson in her defeat. No matter how much things look the same as what you've already accomplished or conquered, always stay guarded for hidden tricks. "How long have I been in bed?" _

"_'Bout a week, and we don't expect you to move for another three days. Blood loss and chakra exhaustion." Naruto tutted. "What the hell were you thinking firing a single-seal, _silent_ **Raiton: Gian** when you had time and opportunity for a vocalized one? Though," he added after a minute, "I don't disagree with your decision to only use a single handseal."_

_She shrugged in lieu of an answer. Naruto nodded regardless, "Ah... pride. The flaw in us all. I hardly remember the events of my mortal days excepting a few of the more character-defining moments and individuals, so very much unlike my dearest wife whose memory was pretty much eidetic even then, but I remember my pride got me nearly killed more than once back then." He nevertheless flicked an admonishing finger on her forehead. "Unlike me, you're a properly trained soldier, an elite operative from what Taigun-kun told us. The best of the best. You're not supposed to let pride get in the way." _

"_I know, sensei," she said gruffly. "I guess I was just mad at myself for being complacent, expecting the spikes to pierce and stop their advance, that I wanted to end it on my terms." _

"_I know the sentiment," Naruto said thoughtfully, reminiscing on days long gone by. "There was this guy, in about my thirteenth century after I became the Kyūbi, that actually was capable of Ascension to divinity. We had to put him down, of course, since he did not have an existing deity ready to willingly sacrifice their divinity to pass it on. That's the rules; immortality is restricted to the divine and those empowered by the divine. They can pass on their power and responsibility to individuals they choose, at the cost of their own power and immortality. Mortals cannot otherwise become immortals. Any who attempt so are to be culled. This particular shithead had found a way to _steal_ someone's divinity. He nearly succeeded when he tricked me and it almost got me killed." He looked like he ate an extremely overripe fruit, though Shepard couldn't say if he was disgusted at falling for a trick or with the concept of stealing divinity. It could be either_._ "Needless to say, when I recovered I demanded the others stay at the sideline. My pride would accept no less. Without his bag of tricks to help him, his personal power was not enough to defeat me and I _**ended** _his _pathetic_ existence." _

_Shepard goggled even as she flinched from the fury and venom lacing his voice near the end of his monologue. It was hard to believe that any of her four sensei could be hurt at all, let alone killed. How powerful were the ancient civilizations, and just how ancient were her sensei themselves? It wasn't the first time she wondered that, but there never had been a real opportunity to ask. Somehow, she suspected that not even they knew the true extent of their life if they had been sleeping on Alchera as they said._

"_Regardless," Naruto continued before she could respond, "you better take a rest. You've been progressing beyond even our wildest imaginations, and trust me that's not exactly easy to do, but you need to let your body rest. We've been bad sensei in that regard since we kept pushing and pushing, not allowing your form to rest and refresh. In our defense, it's been _literally_ millennia since we were mortal and our immortal bodies don't have the same restrictions. For the next three weeks, all we'll do is the morning workout, and an extremely light version of it at that." He hummed thoughtfully. "We'll even allow you to send a message to select people to hint that you're alive. How about that?" _

_Shepard's head snapped towards him so fast Naruto was sure it would have hurt even if she had been perfectly healthy. Her eyes were wide, and hints of wildness could be seen even as her neck protested her motion so fiercely she was sure the neck cramp she felt last week was a result of this. 'A chance to let people know I'm alive?' she thought. 'A chance to let Tali, Liara, Garrus, Wrex, Ashley, and the rest know I'm still around to kick ass and take names?' she thought. 'Hell. The fuck. Yes. Thank fuck we sort-of planned for something like this. Spectre and Council paranoia is good for something after all!' _

_Evidently, her sentiment must have been visible, for Naruto gained a bright smile and nodded. "That's settled then. When you're good to go I'll ask Taigun-kun to connect to the extranet so you can send a message, content of your choosing."_

_She sank into thought, and failed to notice him leave. She was, as a matter of fact, so embroiled in her thoughts on what could have happened to her crew over the year that she didn't notice Morpheus' grasp reaching for her and pulling her into his realm._

Two months later she was pitted against another duo of Yahg – once again able-bodied – and emerged victorious, but _far_ from unscathed. She had underestimated just how far Yahg could swivel their arms backward and got slashed, though nowhere near as severely as the first go-around. Two months after that she faced a _quartet_ of able-bodied Yahg, and once again required the attention of Kokuo to save her from dying. Yahg were simply far too tough for her to fight in more than one or two on one after less than two years of training, no matter how intense it may have been. Their physical strength was high enough that they could probably win in hand-to-hand against Krogan, and the general nature of existence on Parnack meant that all but the most drastic of weapons, ballistic or otherwise, were mostly ineffective unless one got a lucky shot or _very_ good aim. Likewise with jutsu. She didn't even try to use Earth techniques below A-rank any more, unless she'd softened the skin through kunai or blade. Fire was mildly effective, though if she managed to breathe fire into their eyes or mouth she could drop the descriptor 'mildly' and replace it with 'highly'. Lightning and Lava were the only elements she had that were capable of hurting Yahg without any preparation or special targeting.

But, to get back on track, throughout her entire time training with the four Tailed Beasts, as they called themselves, she had concluded one thing; the combination of 'Naruto' plus 'examination' was not good for her continued well-being.

"Initially," Naruto continued in the same excited tone that ripped her from her thoughts, "we had the idea that we would stir up a little trouble and have you put it down." A grimace briefly appeared on his face before he resumed his excited façade. "Unfortunately, we had to scrap that plan when we found out that the tribal Yahg are perfectly willing to forget even age-old grudges to band together to take out a threat. As much as we believe you capable of putting down a hundred Yahg in a no-holds-barred fight, we didn't want to tempt fate and have you face ten _thousand_ or more of the nasty buggers. We could step in, but that'd defeat the purpose of the exercise in the first place."

Shepard couldn't help but sigh in relief, closing her eyes in the process. Had she kept her eyes open she would have had a different reaction because her eyes would have allowed her to see Naruto's vulpine grin. "So we put together a replacement exam that is even better, in our eyes." As it was, his tone conveyed his sadistic amusement with the situation regardless.

"And what exactly does this replacement exam entail?" Shepard asked warily, dread rising in her when her eyes allowed her to see Naruto's wide grin. _I fear this isn't going to be pretty._

"Ever since we came here, Taigun has been pulling experimental weapons from the extranet and... _modifying _them with upgrades from when we were awake last."

Experimental weapons? Modifications? What, like Gauss rifles? Directed energy weapons? Multi-barrel plasma cannons? Shepard was sure she drooled a little even as somewhere deep down she doubted it. A girl could dream though, couldn't she?

"Down, Shepard," Naruto said amusedly, addressing her like one would a pet. She levelled a glare at him even as she sat down again. _When exactly did I stand up?_ "It won't be anything completely special, like energy or plasma rifles, but we figure you'll like them regardless."

Shepard's face fell before she perked up slightly. "Wait," she said, her mind latching onto something the blond had implied. "The fact you considered it means you can do it, right? Right?"

Naruto could feel the excitement rolling off her in waves and couldn't help but grin. "We can," he said neutrally, and watched as Shepard's excitement became a nearly physical force. "But we won't," he finished in the same tone. He chuckled as he saw Shepard's face fall once again in a heartbeat. Had she been a manga character back in the day he didn't doubt she would be lying on the ground, one twitching leg stuck up into the air and a sweatdrop on her face. _Do they have manga on Earth? _Naruto wondered randomly._ It'd be kinda creepy if they did, but the __full__ workings of __Time, specifically the evolution of species and cultures,__ are a mystery even to us._

"What does this, as nice as it is, have to do with the replacement exam?" Shepard asked, deciding not to question 'why'. They'd already mentioned more than once that they were keepers, custodians, not changers or fixers. She'd asked them once why they replaced her biotics with chakra, and her only answer was silence. Highly aggravating, but she wasn't capable of forcing them to answer questions they didn't want to answer.

Naruto's grin widened so much it almost literally split his face in two, and Shepard's mood sank into the floor. Grins like that _couldn't_ be very good for her continued good health.

"We dropped your guns, specifically a pistol, a shotgun, and an assault rifle, as well as your omni-tool inside the largest Yahg village in the surrounding area. Your goal is to infiltrate and get them back. You don't need to worry about the Yahg picking them apart, though, we ensured that they can't be taken apart."

Shepard sat there unblinkingly. _I'm hosed._

"Just how many Yahg are there in the village?" she asked. Less than _ten_ of them had done a number on her, and while she was confident that she could take on fifteen, maybe twenty if she could set the battlefield to her liking – in other words, engage them near a volcano so her **Yōton** jutsu would have their chakra cost cut by half or more –, she wasn't feeling very confident about numbers beyond five in any other scenario.

"Give or take a thousand," Naruto said lightly. _Spirits take me I'm dead,_ Shepard thought morosely_._ "It's not as if we were dropping you into the global Yahg capital where you'd have to fight off five hundred thousand of them."

"Right," she said, nodding, taking what relief she could find from his words. It wasn't much. "Though, a global capital of only half a million? That doesn't seem very large."

"It's not," Naruto agreed. "There are a few thousand settlements similar in size across the globe, though, with hundreds of thousands smaller settlements scattered across Parnack. Total Yahg numbers are approximately equal to a hundred times the recorded amount living on Illium – according to Taigun-kun –, or slightly over eight and a half billion." Naruto shook his head slightly. "To get back on track, you will be provided with only two pieces of information; a map of the area and the fact that Yahg brains are only five percent heavier than a standard human's while having roughly the same density." He reached into a pocket and withdrew a folded paper and threw it to her. "You set out tomorrow at first light, I'll take you to the point marked on the map with the **Hiraishin**, and from there you're on your own."

"Is the mission time-sensitive?" she asked as she caught the paper with one hand.

"It is," Naruto confirmed. "Counting from now, you have a day and a half until the seals that make your weapons unusable to the Yahg as well as unbreakable disintegrate. From your starting point, you will have exactly a quarter day, or one night, to retrieve the items before the seals break. That's approximately ten standard hours, according to our metallic friend. You have until the mission starts to come up with a plan based on available information. Good luck."

She nodded and unfolded the map, spreading it across the floor of the cave she'd been calling 'home' for the past year and nine months. The village itself featured five concentric rings of uniform thickness. The outer ring, the first one she would encounter after breaching the wall, was empty of structures and meant for training grounds – whether for the gun, the blade, or the body wasn't marked – as well as a buffer zone to give invaders no cover so the sentries could gun them down. There were four gates, one at each cardinal direction, but unless she could pull a miracle out of her ass she wouldn't attempt to enter that way. The second ring featured residential areas, where the Yahg and their families spent the night. If she required a distraction, setting off a few detonations in the second ring would be most effective, though she was loath to do so. As an Alliance Marine, then Alliance N7 Operative, then Council Spectre, her entire career was aimed at protecting the innocent – or at least the non-combatants depending on one's views on innocence – and she wasn't about to do otherwise now, regardless of species. The third could be roughly considered the commercial district. Butchers, weapon shops, blacksmiths, and the like were dotted around this ring. The fourth ring was probably the most important to the overall success of the village. It only counted a few structures, but each of these structures were highly important. The hospital, the ammunition factory, an R&D facility, a power plant, and an educational facility. _I wonder what the Yahg equivalent to a justice system is. _The fifth and innermost ring was entirely taken up by a single structure, marked only as 'chief's'. She presumed this was the tribal leader's residence.

_First question: where would my gear likely be stashed? Public and semi-public areas are out, any tribal leader would not allow any but his most trusted subjects to become more powerful than him, which any mass effect weaponry would allow even without modifications. That leaves only two options, really. The R&D facility and the chief's place so that they could be studied and replicated or handed out as the chief saw fit. _

_Second question: How do I get in? There are only two real options for entry. The two marked training grounds in the south-east. I don't doubt there are more, but they're not marked and therefore too risky. A lot depends on the wind; if it blows from the south-east the difficulty goes up. I _could _use the **Dochū Eigyo**, but I'm not good enough a sensor to say what's near the emergence point if I haven't seen the point beforehand._

_I'll need a distraction at the opposite edge of town, but the **Kage Bunshin** is too costly even if it can use jutsu, unlike the others. Perhaps a **Kaminari** **Bunshin **detonation? _

An idea hit her. _A single __**Kage Bunshin**__using__**Dochū Eigyo**__ to insert somewhere in the town, distract the Yahg with the aid of multiple __**Kaminari Bunshin**__ while I sneak in __over the wall near __either of the two training grounds and make my way to the R&D facility? Then out by __**Shunshin**__ and pray I don't have to fight while moving to the extraction point. _

_That could work,_ she decided after a few minutes of deliberation. _It needs refining though. A hell of a lot of refining. _

Hours passed while Shepard was bent over the map, furiously making notes on possible routes of entry, plans of attack and escape, and likely responses to actions based on the little she knew about Yahg psychology. She silently cursed her teacher for not providing more information. She was sure that he had much, much more than he had given her. She was capable of planning an assault with little information, it was one of the criteria of passing N6 training, but she'd not actually planned an operation like this since then. Sentinels generally weren't called for covert ops. Especially after her... upgrade, for want of a better word, to whatever human-looking race the Tailed Beasts used to be she figured that she was ideally suited for overt operations. Fire and Lava didn't lend themselves to staying silent very well at all. In addition, while she couldn't be sure because she had not subjected herself to such, she would hazard a guess she stood out like a magnesium flare in the dark on IR and UV imagery, even compared to normal humans.

When she next looked up, the day had turned into night and she finally realized just how tired she was. Yawning, she folded the map and placed it, and her notes, in a pocket of her jeans. She'd have to convince Naruto to get her some actual armour tomorrow. No way in hell was she going to do this without armour even if it was only to conveniently carry her guns.

As she succumbed to Morpheus' embrace she thought, b_y this time tomorrow I will be on my way out of here, away from this hell-hole of a planet, away from the damned ration bars that haven't started tasting better after two years and towards _real_ food, away from the sadistic training and towards trying to save the galaxy... again._

_By this time tomorrow, I will be on my way to reuniting with my crew. _

– – – –

**Translations:**

**Doton: Ganchūsō; Earth Release: Rising Rock Pillars. Canon.**

**Raiton: Gian; Lightning Release: False Darkness. Canon.**

**Dochū Eigyo; Underground Fish Projection. Canon.**

**Kage Bunshin; Shadow Clone. Canon**

**Kaminari Bunshin; Lightning Clone. Not to be mistaken for the lightning-imbued shadow clone shown in canon, this technique holds far more similarities to the water clone by being a mass of lightning chakra layered by a genjutsu to look like the user.**

**Shunshin; Body Flicker. Canon. **

– – – –

**A/N: So I wanted to include Shepard's graduation exam in this chapter as well as leave Parnack behind, but then the Shepard section of this chapter just kept becoming longer and longer, so it's relegated to the next chapter since I do not like writing 10k+ chapters.**

**I've always liked Aria as a character. The Omega DLC confirmed – to me – my interpretation of a character with rather simple base motivations (Omega is _mine_), with a lot of complexity around her. I'm not sure if I've done her justice in this chapter, but I'll wait for the reviews to make a definite judgement. **

**To cut off those that complain I'm making Asari overpowered, remember that the prideful Turians admit that Asari Commandos are the best in the galaxy, and that they're glad there's not a lot of them. **

**That said, it IS Commandos we're talking about; in this story that's slightly less than a million out of a military of just over three billion (ten percent of the population, like every other species except the militaristic Turians). You may wonder how Benezia and her squad of Commandos got taken out so easily, yes? **

**That's an answer for a later day.**

****I have exams at the end of January (20 and 30, respectively), so the next chapter may not be here until February. It's already half-written, but my ADD and PDD-NOS gets in the way. If I can get enough work on it in between studying, you should see it around 14-15 January.  
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**Merry holidays and I'll see you in the next year!  
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	5. The Years Between IV

**In this chapter that did not want to be written: Shepard graduates and other things happen.**

**This chapter, which is far from my best work, concludes the first major arc: Preparation.  
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**The second major arc, Building the Team, starts next chapter.**

**The Ancients from Alchera**

The forests of Parnack were much like every other forest on every other carbon-based planet – the forests on worlds where the volus could walk suit-free were just _weird_ and patently Lovecraftian – that had forests out there, even if their flora and fauna was a bit super-sized compared to other worlds. Trees as far the eye could see, with varying levels of canopy thickness and branch count. There were numerous avian species flying around, making nests and hunting for food, small animals running around scavenging for their next meal or sustenance for their young, and all sorts of creepy crawlies doing much the same thing as every other inhabitant. Curiously, for all it's danger, Parnack did not have an arachnid class of animals.

What made this particular Parnack forest unique were three specific life-forms dashing through the dense canopy after arriving there in a literal flash of light. Two of these three were male and had that aura around them that relayed to all animals the message, 'I am the Alpha here, do _not _fuck with me', and they wisely fled before them. The third had a more general aura of danger surrounding her, but that made the wildlife no less wary. Even those animals that stood head and shoulders above even the tallest of these three foreign presences shied away from actually instigating some sort of conflict. They arrived at a small clearing and jumped to the ground.

"Alright, Shepard," one of the male forms said calmly. "It's time. You have a compass, a watch, a set of binoculars, one pouch with thirty kunai, a dozen metres of wire, and ten hours before the seals fail. The village is five kilometres straight ahead in that direction. Good luck."

"Thanks, sensei," the female said as he flashed away. She turned to the second male. "You'll be keeping a close eye, I take it?"

The male nodded, the rim of his sunglasses catching the light. "That's the decision, I'm here for supervision."

Shepard inwardly groaned. She'd not trained with Kirabi for a while now and had forgotten just how infuriating his rapping and rhyming could be. It was rushing back something fierce right about now.

"Right," was all she said in response as she crossed her middle and index fingers. "**Kage Bunshin**."

With a short burst of smoke, a perfect copy of herself appeared next to her, wearing the same form fitting black-and-red light armour and matching helmet she wore. It was a hassle convincing Naruto, and the blond had made a good point that any armour she felt comfortable wearing wouldn't stop Yahg claws anyway because they were 'seriously badass', but she managed to convince him shortly before deploying, arguing that comfort on an infiltration mission had a noticeable effect on its outcome. It was even partly true in her case.

"Alright, inventory check. I wouldn't put it past sensei to not give us everything he said he'd given us."

Her clone nodded. "Indeed."

"Kunai?"

"Thirty, check."

"Wire?"

"11 metres, give or take," her clone responded after wrapping the wire eleven times around her waist with a moderate length of wire left over. Normally that'd only guarantee 9.9 metres, but the armour added some. This, of course, assumed her measurements were still the same even after she had undergone her reconstruction by the Tailed Beasts. _Spirits, what I wouldn't give for even a rudimentary omni-tool __right now. _"Check."

"Looks like sensei isn't trying to pull a trick," Shepard said, not even bothering to hide the surprise in her voice.

"Despite being a fox, he doesn't want to risk putting you in a box," Kirabi remarked with a shrug.

She snorted. "Then what about stage three fire training?" she asked. Despite wearing a gas mask to keep the smoke away from her lungs, she _had_ nearly succumbed to her injuries due to the raw heat of the flame nearly liquefying her organs. Compartmented or not, liquefied organs were _seriously bad news._

"Lady Five was there," he said with another shrug, as if that settled the matter. In a way, it did. Kokuo was a _really, __really__ good _healer. She'd have to track down Chakwas and introduce each other once they got off this god-forsaken ball of rock.

"Fair enough, I guess."

Without further ado, the three took to the trees.

– – – –

"Shepard, this is your show," Kirabi said, far softer than she figured he was capable of, once they had reached the edge of the forest clearing housing the village. "Ready, set, go!"

Shepard nodded, and wet the tips of a her left index and middle finger. "Wind's coming..." she grabbed the compass and stuck her now-wet fingers in the air, "... from the north-west. Perfect."

She turned to her **Kage Bunshin** and nodded. "Observation, three hours," was all she said.

She received a nod in return, and her clone dashed back into the canopy to circle around the village. Shepard turned her sharpest eye towards the village proper, enhancing her sight with the binoculars.

The village was surprisingly large for its population, Shepard mused idly. A village of a thousand humans wouldn't even take up thirty percent of the area the Yahg village did. She supposed that, if one took away the outer ring the comparison would be more even, but the Yahg would always take up more space by virtue of their shortest full-grown members being head and shoulders above the tallest human of the same gender. It was built on a large hill – in area, not height – that capped out at fifty metres, ten below her current branch.

The chieftain's residence, for want of a better word, hut wasn't really appropriate but it wasn't a mansion either or even a house, stood out among the others. Quite literally, too. The chieftain's place was located on top of a hill, with the rest of the village spread out among the circles she'd familiarized herself with yesterday on the slope of said hill. _It's almost as if the Yahg village was designed to allow its defenders to attack potential invaders__ from the safety of their home__ at the cost of making themselves easier to target __by aforementioned invaders__. __I wonder what day-to-day life on Parnack __has to be__ to create such a mentality. _

The roads were very ordered; if it weren't for the circle-shape of the village she didn't doubt the Yahg would've built a village that resembled places like New York back on Earth. She could see no patrols in the village, but she doubted that they completely absent unless the Yahg did not have the concept of infiltration at all.

Somehow, she doubted that. Life generall did not evolve intelligence because it was able to smash its way through things, it did so because they needed to be smarter to survive. Even the Krogan knew subterfuge and infiltration before their fall during the Rebellions, it was part of why the Rebellions were so bloody. A minimum of seven Turian colonies fell because Krogan had wormed their way to high positions on those colonies pre-Rebellion and got their hands on access and lockdown codes.

An hour into her observation, her earlier doubt was validated; there _were _patrols in the Yahg village. They were rather smart about it, too; the patrols didn't stand out from the common Yahg in any way that she could see, only distinguished by a group of Yahg moving with more purpose and alertness than the Yahg around them. She tried to make a mental map of the routes, but it was soon apparent that it was unnecessary; the patrols she saw only ever patrolled in one direction, and their pattern was very predictable. Always counter-clockwise, always from the inner ring to the outer ring and back, and the next patrol followed fifteen minutes later like clockwork. She noticed two pair of guards outside the building marked on the map as the research and development building. It looked rather unassuming otherwise; it was three stories high, though there could be numerous underground levels, decorated in much the same way as all the other buildings in the village – that is, not at all except for the single stylized 'M' that she suspected was the mark for the village as a whole since every other Yahg wore the same mark as a tattoo on the backs of their right hand –, and absolutely nothing gave it away as a building of high importance except for the fact that it was on the second ring from the centre. She silently lamented the fact that the building she was interested in didn't have windows on her side. This, of course, assumed that Naruto-sensei hadn't purposefully messed up the designations. The words of Bee-sensei didn't do much to assuage her suspicions in that area.

Faulty or lacking intelligence was practically day-to-day business in the life of a Spectre.

Precisely at the three-hour mark according to her watch, a branch close to her rustled from the weight of her clone landing on it. Normally she'd have dispelled the clone to get the information, but that would have defeated the entire point of creating the clone that early in the mission in the first place.

"And?" she softly asked of her clone.

"Confirmed visual on our pistol," she responded at the same volume. "R&D third floor, second visible room from the North, marking on the map is accurate. I suspect the others are in non-visible rooms or in the chieftain's hut."

"Nice," the original replied.

"In addition, patrols move counter-clockwise every quarter in predictable sinusoidal patterns. Everything else seems to be in accord with the information we were given earlier."

The original nodded. She had determined most of that already, but the confirmation of a map marking and at least one weapon was very welcome news. "Right, go fish and raise hell," she ordered her clone. "Mark for my entry is a fireball into the sky."

Her clone nodded and gave a picture-perfect salute. "Understood."

Her clone jumped down to the ground and sprinted across the open field toward the village. She could barely hear the clone say "**Doton: Dochū Eigyo no Jutsu**" before she disappeared from view. A few minutes later she saw herself re-appear in the north-eastern quadrant of the village, causing the few Yahg that were out at this time of day to pause and stare as she emerged like a fish from underground. It lasted until her clone shrouded herself in the signature cloak of the **Karyūken** and punched the closest Yahg in the face. The Yahg howled – or roared, it was hard to tell with the distance she was at –, and mere seconds later a general alarm was sounded.

Even before her clone launched the fireball into the air, the original was on the move with a soft curse flowing from her lips. She needed to infiltrate the village swiftly, if the amount of time it took for the alarm to be raised was any indication. She, too, ran at the village wall but decided to scale it, rather than go under it. She couldn't see what was directly behind the wall if she went fish so she channelled chakra to her feet and climbed up the side of the wall.

Less than a minute later she found herself on the ground at the other side of the wall, having taken extreme care to be as silent and invisible as she could, silently cursing the fact that she never bothered to learn either the **Meisaigakure no jutsu **or the **Tōton no jutsu**. Fortunately, her clone seemed to have successfully drawn the attention of the sentries watching this side of the wall.

At least, there were no bullets from the snipers she'd seen in the making their way towards her. What she'd seen of Yahg firearms during her observation clearly told her that they favoured large-calibre bullets which would have ploughed through her with ease.

She sprinted towards the other end of the training field and into the cover of a Yahg house. The only precaution she took was to ensure that dust didn't billow in her wake so that the Yahg that were looking away would not find incentive to change that. She could have gone fish, but she wanted to conserve as much chakra as she could. Infiltrations like this _always _hit a snag somewhere, and she wanted to be as fresh as possible when it did.

She jumped up to the rooftop of the nearest Yahg residence and quickly took her bearings. The R&D facility was on the north western side of the village, and she currently was in the south eastern quadrant. She made her way across the rooftops as silently as possible, using the fastest **Shunshin** she felt comfortable using to cross roads whenever they popped up to avoid being seen. She thanked her lucky stars that Yahg didn't have equipment or individuals capable of sensing chakra. There were rumours of Asari Matriarchs being able to sense biotics much like Yugito once explained she and Kokuo could sense chakra, but none of the rumours were ever about a Matriarch below half a millennium, and she sincerely doubted Yahg lived that long. This, of course, presumed that biotics and chakra were similar enough to be detected the same way.

Somehow, she doubted that.

Truth be told, her journey through the village seemed a bit too easy for her tastes. Even with the threat of an intruder, it was prudent to keep patrols throughout the village going in case it was a diversion... but there wasn't as far as she had seen. Sure, she'd timed it so that she nominally had a straight shot towards the R&D facility if she was fast enough, but she didn't think that _all_ the patrols would be recalled.

She had a clear sho-

Memories rushed into her head. She swiftly dove into a nearby chimney to process the memories granted by her clone. She was not capable of doing so during fairly high-speed stealthy movement in the middle of enemy territory without slamming into things or making a very good target out of herself, and presenting a still target standing out in the open, even if on a rooftop, was not a good move. However, if she failed to process the new memories _now_ they would slip away permanently, rendering any intelligence gained on individual Yahg fighting styles, or particularly dangerous individuals in general, null and void.

_She sniggered as she watched the faces of the surrounding Yahg. It seemed they had never thought that anyone would be foolish enough to punch them in the face. _

_As the alarms were sounded from the agony-filled howl, she became a whirling dervish of flame and pain. Within twenty seconds she had knocked all ten of the Yahg near her entry point unconscious, though the last few were tougher because the sound of the alarm had knocked them out of their stupor._

_She heard stomping and spotted the original her climbing over the wall in a corner of her vision. With a pleased smile lighting up her face, she moved to intercept the new arrivals, but suddenly jumped to the side, allowing a blue blur to miss her. She followed it to its destination and spotted a Yahg appearing from the blue shroud. _

Biotic charge. Damnit sensei, biotics-capable Yahg is the kind of intel that's considered critical to mission success!

_The next few minutes were spent frantically diving, leaping, and cartwheeling out of the way as other Yahg joined the first and added their own biotics in the mix. Who knew the Yahg not only had biotics, but had developed Warp, Throw – or Pull, she wasn't sure and not intending to find out–, Charge and something that looked like that one the Justicar she encountered before she entered the military called Reave completely on their own? _

_In either case, when she got out of this she was going to kick some blond ass for not mentioning this. Suddenly the barrage lifted, and the Charging Yahg relocated to the rooftops. She looked around in confusion. She spotted two columns of Yahg forming along one road leading to where she was, and she gulped as she saw the largest Yahg yet sprinting towards her. He stood at more than three metres and if he weighed less than 400kg she would be highly surprised. He was faster than she anticipated too, but she had learned her lesson a few months ago and kept her guard up. _

_She performed a cartwheel to the right to dodge the massive Yahg barrelling in her direction and flowed into a flaming roundhouse kick as he screeched to a halt well within striking distance. "**Karyūken: Senten****ashi****!**"_

_She felt her foot connect with the massive Yahg and ruthlessly quashed her usual train of thought regarding the naming of taijutsu moves. Ninjutsu and genjutsu she could understand but taijutsu... _

_She cursed as the gargantuan Yahg grabbed her foot and tried to crush it. She could not afford to let herself be popped just yet, so she tried a **Shunshin **to get out of his grip. Somehow, she succeeded and landed at the opposite edge of the impromptu circle the other Yahg had made. _

_The giant Yahg, that she only now noticed also had an additional finger on each hand, charged at her at speeds that his hulking frame had no right moving at. She cursed internally; she had used far more chakra in the extended use of the Fire Cloak and the roundhouse kick than she had expected and was nearly out of juice. _

_Another **Shunshi****n **was not an option no matter how attractive, she would be left with so little chakra that she might as well dispel. That left her with very few open options at the moment, and with each second the chances of her doing something that did not produce the smoke from dismissal grew smaller and smaller. When the opposing Yahg had crossed half of the distance between them, she decided that she was going to go out, and she was going to do so _in style_._

_She estimated that she had enough chakra left for one shot, so she grabbed a kunai and held it in front of her with both hands like a sword. This particular jutsu was still a work in progress, but she figured that she did not need a complete jutsu to make the life of the original Shepard easier should she encounter this particular Yahg. _

_Given the fact that the other Yahg were not interfering at all despite being more than capable of such told her that this particular Yahg was a) well respected, b) the chieftain, or c) both. _

_The sound of a hundred chirping birds filled the clearing. The **Chidori **was not a particularly complex jutsu in principle. It was simply coating a weapon or fist with Lightning chakra. _

_The difficulty lay in stabilizing such enormously dense Lightning chakra. She was currently capable of a tenth of the strength of the full **Chidori**, a fact she was pretty pleased about for the two months she had been training with this jutsu. _

_At this power level the lethality of the **Chidori** was zero unless it hit a vital organ, unlike the full-strength version which was lethal anywhere you pierced the body, but there was an advantage that the full-power **Chidori** did not have; she did not need particularly good eyes to see past the concentration of Lightning chakra. _

_It allowed her to see the eyes of the watching Yahg. If they were human, she would say that fear and... anticipation? _Yes, _she thought a moment later. _Anticipation _in their eyes. She shook her head to clear her thoughts. She re-focused on the Yahg dashing towards her and decided to meet it halfway. _

_She ran at her hulking opponent and saw his eyes widen. With a cry of **"Chidori"** she plunged the Lightning-charged kunai into the chest of her opponent moments before her opponent struck her and she dispelled._

Shepard frowned as she processed the last of the memories granted by her clone. The Yahg that stood head and shoulders above the other Yahg just _screamed _'Chieftain'. The silver lining was that he seemed incapable of biotics himself... or he was just so powerful her clone was not enough of a threat to make him use his biotics.

She hoped it was the former, but it would be best if she started preparing for the latter.

She hopped out of the chimney and froze. There was a Yahg _right in front of her, looking right at her. _Had she been able to, she would have seen soot on her butt. Had she not worn a helmet, she would have noticed the smoke.

She cursed loudly as the Yahg bellowed and charged. A quick **Shunshin **got her out of his path and put some distance between the two to boot. She considered herself fortunate that the Yahg appeared to be sprinters, rather than runners, and would take some time to get from where her clone was to where she was now.

She performed a cartwheel to narrowly dodge the wild slash of the Yahg with her on the rooftop. Three handseals later, she gathered a tiny bit of her chakra and called out, "**Bunshin no Jutsu**," creating hundreds of illusionary clones for the chakra of a single Great Fireball.

The standard clone require _that little _chakra.

She did not wait for the Yahg to converge on her location and sprinted off, her clones scattering to the four winds. It wouldn't take long for the Yahg to find out these were holographic projections, so she bled some extra chakra for additional uses of the **Shunshin** and managed to get inside the R&D facility without a further hitch.

"That was too easy," she said offhandedly, then stopped and palmed her face. "I just had to jinx things, did I?"

Releasing her face from her palm, she stalked forward through the R&D facility. It was, truth be told, not all that interesting. Uniform white walls in a square corridor without any sort of mural or other decoration and a door every twenty or so metres down each wing of the roughly V-shaped building. There were laboratories here that looked like the ones she saw on photos of mid-2000 chemistry labs, though she was not certain since she never studied chemistry. The first floor was filled with twenty-eight such laboratories, and only those on the northern wing had windows. Try as she might, she could not recognize anything that looked like a cafeteria, though she acknowledged that it might be because of her human preconceptions of what a cafeteria should look like.

Despite the lack of anything interesting, she kept up her vigil. The lack of _any _Yahg in the building did not feel right to her. In the vast recesses of her mind, in an area that was kept locked away whenever Shepard entered 'mission mode', a chibi version of herself started chanting.

'_Semper crecis._

_Aut decrecis._

_V__ita detestabilis.'_

She ascended the stairs at the far end of one of the two wings.

The second floor was hardly more interesting than the first. Chemistry labs were replaced by their physics cousins and several mechanical workshops. Like the chemical labs, she recognized just about nothing present inside the physics labs, never having taken much in the way of physics courses past high school. One of these workshops had a few weapons strewn about here and there. She tried to pick one up out of curiosity. _Ancestors, these things w__eigh__ a ton! _ She put the weapon, a scoped weapon she was pretty sure was meant to be a sniper rifle, down and silently continued exploring the two wings of the institute.

And she had not yet seen even a single Yahg. Shepard was getting _really _concerned with the lack of population. Surely her distraction wasn't _that _effective?

_'Ludo Mentis Aciem.'_

At the far end of the wing she was currently on Shepard appeared to strike gold when she stumbled upon an empty office. She grabbed a paper lying out in the open and nearly growled. It would have been too much to hope that the Yahg wrote in a language she could read, would it not? She threw the paper back on the pile and walked out of the office. Had she looked closer at the paper that was exposed because of her actions, she would have seen a blueprint of her pistol's exterior.

Other than the office, the second floor did not hold very much of interest. Only a few experimental weapons she would not possibly be able to wield effectively. Garrus might, though. She definitely would not, sniper rifles were not really her thing. Even if they were more suited to taking out tanks than enemy personnel.

The third floor was... lacking, for the most part. The southern wing was dedicated to offices, with something that resembled a rudimentary desktop computer in each office, but they were useless to her at the moment as the written Yahg language was alien to her, in more ways than one. The northern wing featured primarily workshop where a few devices were under construction she sort-of recognized as being solar cells and a few other doodads that would not be useful unless she was a permanent resident of the village... which she was not.

It was somewhere near the end of the northern wing that she struck gold.

There in the middle of the room, strapped to something she guessed to be a microscope, was her pistol. It gleamed in the light let in by the window, and Shepard could see that its usual blue-white Alliance paint job had been replaced by a dull grey with the black markings that signified a seal written on the gun. She hovered around the weapon, checking if any traps had been set up for people that removed the weapon without authorization. She found none.

She gently removed her weapon from where it was clamped, and cradled the weapon gently in her hands before clamping it to the mag-lock on her armour. There was the familiar thud of a weapon being locked into place at her hip, and the very minor shockwave pleasantly spread throughout her entire body.

She sighed. She had missed this. The familiar weight of a weapon at one's side, even if she could not fire it due to a lack of thermal clips, was her ever-present companion after Mindoir. She went _everywhere _with at least one weapon attached to her, and even the Council had allowed her the right to concealed carry within Council chambers even before she became a Spectre due to psychological issues. Granted, she had to relinquish all heat sinks beforehand, but still. She had felt naked and vulnerable the past two years even as she was learning how to wield the elements themselves, but now...

Now she was, once again, _whole_.

Shaking herself from her blissful stupor, Shepard sneaked out of the room. There were still two more room to visit, though she did not think that her guns were present in either.

To her great surprise, the first of the two doors was locked, the first door out of forty plus to be so. Scowling, she enveloped her hand in chakra and punched the lock. The lock broke and the door flew from its hinges, it being a door that opened to the outside, rather than inside.

Nothing. Not the figurative nothing that still left empty workbenches, desks, fume hoods, or similar, but completely nothing. It was a square room about four metres in all directions, and it was absolutely barren, though Shepard could see places where she figured something was attached once.

_What the hell? Why would a room in R&D be empty? _

She placed the door back where it was, taking care to make it appear as if it had not been unlocked. It was unlikely she would ever be back after this, but it never hurt to be thorough.

The second of the two remaining doors led to another completely barren room.

She frowned. What the hell was going on here?

She shook her head to stop her brain from conjuring up theories. The most important thing was that of her three weapons, only her pistol was in the R&D facility. Given the tribal nature of the Yahg and their warrior culture, Shepard did not think that the chief would willingly part with such advanced weaponry as her own unless it was with the R&D facility. She sincerely doubted that the weapons would be kept in one of the residences on the fourth ring, which left the second ring and the chief's own residence.

She returned to the room that held her pistol and smashed the window, using the newly created opening to climb outside. Truth be told, walking on walls never got old. It was like sticking a big middle finger up in the face of gravity, and was only eclipsed by using chakra to walk on water.

She could hardly wait until she 'accidentally' walked on water in front of a Christian. It would be hilarious.

She stepped off the wall onto the roof and looked down at the streets. There were dozens of Yahg actively scouring the village, no doubt looking for her. A large group headed straight for the R&D institute, no doubt to ensure that nothing was stolen. Shepard scoffed, they should have placed guards if they were so anxious nothing was stolen.

She locked onto the chieftain's hut, far and away the most likely place where the rest of her equipment was stored. If her guess was off she was in a whole buttload of trouble. She sat down at the edge and waited patiently for the rush of Yahg entering R&D to die down, at which point she could walk down the wall and leisurely ascend the hill upon which the chieftain's hut stood.

Or she could jump down and go fish.

Decisions.

She decided to conserve her chakra as much as possible, she _had _jinxed it not too long ago, and as soon as the last Yahg entered the building, she channelled chakra to her feet and stepped onto the wall that would take her to the ground.

Ten minutes later, Shepard opened the door to the residence of the Yahg chieftain and halted. _Something doesn't feel right here... _

In hindsight, she had been having far too little trouble with the entire infiltration up to this point. She frowned and refocused on her goal and entered what appeared to be a living room, if the furniture was any indication. If she was correct, her weapons should be right... there.

She spotted the rest of her weapons, and the black band that was the hardware portion of her omni-tool, affixed to the wall like a hunting trophy. Shepard reached to grab her wayward weaponry, and did not bother looking around to ensure she would not be ambushed. Nor did she check for possible traps.

Not that it mattered just yet.

A shadow fell over her and she froze, her hand quite literally centimetres away from her equipment. She remembered her words at the R&D facility and once again cursed herself for jinxing the mission.

There, in the doorway, stood the one Yahg she didn't want to meet. At more than three metres tall, the local Yahg chieftain cut an imposing figure. She gulped, seeing him from afar as he made his way towards clone-created chaos was one thing. It was another thing entirely to see the behemoth up close. She estimated that the claws on each of his twelve fingers – six on each hand, unlike the usual Yahg five per hand – were easily twenty centimetres long. She didn't doubt that her light armour would stand very, _very_ little chance against a direct hit from those. Not that it did against normal Yahg claws, but whereas her armour would be like a thin strip of leather to normal Yahg, she figured that it would be like paper before this one.

The chieftain's eight eyes observed her with supreme disdain, as if she was but a bug to squash, before a hint of anger seeped into those eight dread eyes. Evidently he didn't like that she a) invaded his village, b) caused such devastation to it, c) broke into his personal residence, and d) attempted to take his trophies.

In light of that, the chieftain's calm was rather admirable. Nevertheless, Shepard could see the light of rage growing in the chieftain's eyes. The tension in the air grew thicker and thicker until finally, with a challenging roar, the chieftain snapped and bellowed out his displeasure at her activities.

Deep within Shepard's psyche, something rose up in response to the chieftain's roar.

It was a very primal part, the part of herself that was a remnant of days long passed, days when _Homo Sapiens_ were still a cave-dweller, when they had not yet developed language beyond grunts and pheromones. When an individual's entire existence could be summed up by the words 'fight, hunt, feed, and fornicate'. When her ancestors still looked at the sky and thought it the realm of the gods, if they had developed a concept of divinity in the first place.

When challenges for control of a clan or tribe were essentially day-to-day business. Buried beneath thousands upon thousands of years and hundreds upon hundreds of generations of sophistication, Primal Shepard surged in strength at hearing the chieftain's roar, and responded in kind before subsiding.

The chieftain froze, before lowering his arms and motioning for her to follow. The chieftain's bodyguards stood to the side, their weapons lifted in the traditional 'present arms' as they formed a path between them.

Heaving the sigh of those cursed with the luck of the damned, Shepard followed.

– – – –

The hill was hollow. The fifty-metre high hill was _hollow_.

And it was filled with an arena. An honest-to-the-Ancestors _arena!_

An official-looking Yahg snapped his fingers and the roaring crowd, growing in size and volume by the minute, fell silent, somehow having heard the sound over their noise. He made a few gestures that Shepard guess was a command for her to follow him, and when the Yahg started to walk away she was proven correct. She was led down a stairway into an antechamber, where she was offered a choice of weapons, but neither the axe, sword, or mace suited her. She reached into her pouch and withdrew all her kunai and showed them to the official. He grabbed one and ran his finger along the blade's edge. He snorted, but when he pulled his digit away he noticed a faint stream of blood running down his skin he gave an approving nod.

The official started talking to her in the guttural language of the Yahg that would not sound out of place in a Lovecraftian setting, but he could see that she did not understand a word of what he said. A yellow flash surrounded her wrist, leaving a wristband behind. She could make out the markings of a seal on the thick wristband and with a bit of chakra enhancement she could see the centering kanji.

知

得

She frowned a little. What was the translation for these again? A few seconds later her brain had gathered the right bit of knowledge. _Satoku_: Knowledge; Comprehension. Obviously, a translation bracelet. Idly her brain wondered why kikitori was not used, which specifically meant listening comprehension if her memory served her right, before she shrugged. It wasn't important.

It was only after that realization that she realized that she could now obviously, and clearly, hear the official.

"What was that?" he said. To her surprise, the bracelet gave him a suburban American accent, though she could clearly hear the guttural origins of the words. She sincerely doubted that anything in the memories of her sensei talked with an American accent so did that mean the bracelet used her own memories somehow?

She shrugged. "My teacher can telepo- relocate things instantly, no matter if there are obstacles in the way," she answered, unsure if the Yahg had a word for the concept of teleportation. "This appears to be a translation bracelet. So that we can understand each other," she added upon seeing his confused look. Either all Yahg spoke the same language or translation was not the word they used to express the concept of understanding other languages. She frowned minutely. _Wouldn't the word 'translation' translate into whatever word the Yahg use for the same thing? _She threw the thought away, she had other, more important, things to worry about right now.

The Yahg nodded in understanding. "You have a powerful master then, challenger," he mused. "Now that you can understand me, I will go over the conditions and limitations of the fight ahead once more. It is, of course, a fight to the death."

"Of course," she replied.

"There are few," the official continued as if she had remained silent. "The first is the arena. Should you touch ground outside the square, you automatically lose and your life is ours. Touching the ceiling, however, is acceptable as long as your touch is limited to the area directly above the square." Shepard nodded, such a rule was not uncommon when this practice was still performed back on Earth, though she suspected that a challenger once used a Biotic Charge to get to the ceiling outside the indicated area, probably to get at a weapon of some sort. The lack of support beams above the ring with obvious evidence they had once been there supported that conclusion. She slapped her cheeks, her thoughts were wandering again.

"The second is that any poisons that do not immediately kill are banned. This is to prevent a situation where the settlement is without a head after the fight.

"The third is a rather more barbaric practice in my opinion, but it has its roots in tradition and tradition must be observed," he said, and Shepard was sure that either his opinion was rare among Yahg or it was a sentiment not shared by the current chief, assuming that what was seen in his eyes was resentment.

"What tradition is that?" she asked curiously.

The official made a sound she guessed was the Yahg equivalent of a sigh. "The victor has to rip out the loser's heart and eat it in front of everyone."

Shepard nearly turned green and took a few deep breaths to calm herself. She could not afford the distraction of feeling queasy right before such a fight.

"You will not be able to leave the heart uneaten if you wish to get away without repercussions. The traditionalist faction is larger than it was in times gone by." He blinked with all eight eyes at once repeatedly for a few seconds. "You will exit this room via the portal you didn't use to enter once the horn blares. Fight well, challenger," the official said in parting.

Shepard sat down and entered a light meditative trance to calm herself before the fight.

What felt like a scant ten minutes later, the horn blared and Shepard stood up. Steeling her mind, she exited the room and into the arena. The bright lights used to illuminate the stage blinded her briefly when they focused on her as she appeared from the room.

"And here is our challenger!" a voice roared into a megaphone, barely making itself heard over the din of the spectators. "From an unknown race and unknown origins, weighing in at four _ch'jaflga_, and with the ability to call upon lightning and fire!

"What is your name, challenger?"

"I am Shepard!" she yelled as loud as she could, hoping that the announcer heard her. Apparently they did, because he swiftly continued.

"Give a warrior's welcome toooo... SHEPARD!"

The crowd roared. Apparently her clone had put up an agreeable performance earlier for them to react this way.

The other door opened, and the chieftain stepped out wearing armour that looked ceremonial as much as it looked functional. Before the chieftain stepped onto the stage, which Shepard realized looked like something out of an old anime Kasumi once tried to get her interested in – something with dragon in its name, it didn't work due to lack of weaponry. Kasumi had decidedly more success with Gundam –, he reached up to touch three points on his armour in rapid succession, and the ceremonial decorations fell off.

"And here is our beloved chieftain!" the announcer yelled. "Clocking in at sixteen _ch'jaflga_, he has led us to our great position over the last fourteen years. ALL HAIL KRO'FLTAL!"

"ALL HAIL!" the audience shouted at once as one, and Shepard began to suspect that despite the words of his subjects, this chieftain wasn't all that favoured in the village. She focused on the chieftain, who had taken his place on the other side of the ring.

The crowd fell silent as Shepard and the chieftain stared at each other. Metaphorical sparks lanced between their eyes as their bodies tensed, their breathing smoothed out, and pre-combat stances were assumed.

"FIGHT!"

Neither moved. The air had grown stale from the tension between the pair currently inside the fighting area. Shepard allowed her eyes to roam over her opponent's frame, searching for weaknesses.

"_Everyone has their weakness, Cadet Shepard. Hostiles favouring one leg are likely to be weak with the other, guarding one side usually means the other is weak. Their body betrays themselves to those who know _how _and _where _to look."_

There! His weight was shifted slightly to his right, and his right arm was raised beyond what she would consider healthy for Yahg, though she was far from an expert. Deciding to discard the arm for now until she had more conclusive proof, Shepard had her first target; the left leg.

A large cloud of dust billowing up behind her, Shepard exploded forward.

– – – – _The Day Before, Omega – – – –_

"Ancestors take you, you _bosh'tet _machine! Cooperate, damn you!" the young woman wearing a matte gray envirosuit shouted at the gadget she'd assembled.

"Are you alright, Tali?" one of her coworkers, wearing a burgundy envirosuit, asked hesitantly. Ever since she'd received that strange message a few months ago, Tali had been... strange. Stranger than usual, at any rate. She constantly muttered to herself about everything and nothing, and sometimes she'd softly – almost reverently – utter 'the Ancestors deemed to take you before your time, but you struggled free from their grasp. _Keelah se'lai, Kaihar.' _The first time they heard that they'd almost put her in touch with a Quarian psychotherapist, because Tali's Captain on her Pilgrimage, Spectre Shepard, was _dead,_ it said so on every reliable and unreliable news station out there!

On the other hand, the fact that all of them were in agreement was odd, _very_ odd. If Tali had not been that distraught over the news they'd think it was some kind of cover-up situation. Regardless of her Captain's status, this new Tali put them all on edge for a reason they couldn't articulate.

"I am fine, Narran," she replied in the same airy tone that was her new neutral tone since she received that message. "However," she continued, re-addressing the gadget on the bench before her in a venomous tone that screamed '_I will hurt you if you don't do as I say'. "_I cannot say the same for this _bosh'tet_ piece of _scrap_ if it doesn't turn on within ten seconds," she finished with a glare that went mostly unseen behind her violet-polarized faceplate, but that could almost be felt by the poor souls in Tali's vicinity.

_Note to self: flush waste container ASAP_, Narran thought. Evidently, the device thought among similar lines as it slowly started to emit a soft whirring. Within moments, the whirring was joined by a soft hum as the ventilator was booted. Within moments, the anti-grav field activated and a hard-light construct appeared before her, taking the shape of a standard drone.

"Unit 2249, designation Chiktikka vas Paus online. Awaiting commands."

"_Muahahahahaha!"_ Narran jumped in fright from the sound of Tali's evil-sounding laughter. _"IT LIVES!"_ She coughed. "Sorry, but I always wanted to do that," she said, scratching the back of her helmet sheepishly.

"Ancestors, Tali!" Narran gasped, his hands pressed over his heart. "You nearly gave me cardiac arrest!"

"Good!" Tali said brightly. "That means I did it right!"

Narran'Sharal vas Neema simply shook his head, trying to calm his pounding heart. The loss of a close one, especially if that one is a Captain, always was devastating to any Quarian, but Tali took it especially hard. She didn't eat voluntarily for two weeks following the news of the Normandy's destruction and she threw herself into her engineering duties with a fervour seen rarely among Quarians. Eventually, in an effort to distract her from her Captain's death, they introduced her to vids from Earth, the homeworld of her Captain. That was a mistake.

Within a few days, the majority of the Neema could be heard quoting lines from Earth vids, and the vids from Earth soon spread around the entire Flotilla like wildfire, to use the human expression. It was very unsettling to hear otherwise well-adjusted individuals like Sergeant Kal'Reegar yell 'say hello to my little friend' just before he activated his shoulder-mounted rocket launcher, even if it was for target practice. Thankfully, the frequency of quoting vids had been drastically reduced approximately a year ago, but that did not mean that it went away. Far from it.

"Alright, Chiktikka," Tali said. "Test one: electrical lance. Target: Alpha-2. Activate."

"Acknowledged." The drone approached target Alpha-2, a suspiciously Geth-like stationary dummy, and a lance of electricity shot out from the drone when it had closed to two metres, the maximum range of drone-mounted electrical weaponry.

"Acceptable," Tali muttered while tapping her omni-tool to properly assess the damage done. "But far from optimal, might have to revert to version eleven." She sighed. "Test two: rocket launcher. Target: Alpha-3. Activate."

"Command confirmed," Chatika replied in a monotone. Target Alpha-3 was another suspiciously Geth-like target, though unlike Alpha-2 it was a mobile one. Following a short start-up period that was well within acceptable parameters, the rocket sped away from the confines of the drone. Tali had debated with herself to put a proc with the rocket launching sequence that spouted bad-ass one-liners, but decided against it.

She ran a few quick diagnostics on her new combat drone, and nodded to herself.

"Everything is within operational parameters. Kaihar is going to be pleased. Narran, inform Admiral Gerrel that the Combat Drone v12.0 is alive and functional, but that further testing is required to optimize ordinance and ensure long-term stability in and out of live-combat situations," Tali ordered. Narran shook his head at her reference to her erstwhile Captain, but kept his mouth.

"Understood, Tali," Narran replied, and he hastened to the sole comm terminal that was to be used to establish a connection to Flotilla Command. Not through technological limitations – Narran inwardly scoffed at the term 'technological limitations' applied to _anything _Quarian –, but by order of the Admiralty in accord with Aria T'Loak, their employer for the past two years, though the currently active crew had arrived only six months ago to replace the first. In total, Aria employed nearly two thousand Quarians, along with a handful of Salarian, Asari and Turian researchers in these labs. He decided to get the most of this communication and turned a right instead of left, taking him to the other labs where fleet-siblings were busy studying Reaper Tech from a safe distance using remotely controlled actuators and high-def cameras. A Quarian entered the hallway from a corridor on his left and his eyes lit up in recognition.

Faceplate polarized a deep red – his favourite colour –, enviro-suit painted a dull burnt orange, and two veils, each with a unique pattern, adorning said suit. Even if one of the two veils was not decorated with his own clan pattern he would still have recognized her by the subtle differences in body language and mannerisms that allowed Quarians to tell one another apart.

"Narran," Sheila'Herral vas Neema greeted him warmly.

"Sheila," he replied in much the same tone with an accompanying tone of greeting. Sheila moved to walk next to him, their hands occasionally brushing against each other.

"What brings you here, away from Tali's domain?" she asked, saying the second half of the sentence in a slight dramatic

"She sent me to dump preliminary data on the new version of the combat drone," he said. "She got the rocket to work and it's quite the walloper." He blinked and groaned, placing a hand to his faceplate. "It packs quite the punch," he corrected lamely.

Sheila giggled from his antics. Her eyes lit up even more than they already were due to Quarian biology combined with their faceplates when she processed his words, not just the way in which they were said.

She gave a squeal that did not mesh with her being a grown Quarian and wrapped her arms around Narran, her faceplate very close to his. "Truly?" she asked like a child presented with an exciting new toy.

"Yes. Talk to Tali if you want to learn more, I doubt she'll mind the company," he replied. At a lower volume and in a somewhat hopeful tone he continued, "I know I wouldn't."

She placed a hand at the side of his helmet, having heard his soft addendum. "You know I don't make the assignment rosters, but I'll try and appeal to Harinn." She sighed softly. "We've seen far too little of each other the past half year," she said in a wistful tone.

"We can always talk about reserving a clean room directly to Aria, you know."

"I know," she said softly. He knew her, though. She wouldn't unless he practically forced her to for fear of being perceived selfish. He liked that in her and simultaneously despaired about that quality of her. There was nothing wrong with being a little selfish once in a while, even the much more social than average Quarians recognized that.

They slowly separated as they approached the lab where Sheila spent most of her days. They nodded to the guard outside the lab, something'something vas Idenna, Narran wasn't too sure, and walked inside.

"Sheila, come take a look at this," one of the researchers said from his workstation the moment they had entered.

"Once more unto the breach," she sighs. "Talk to you later, laerin." With a minor wiggle of a delectable posterior she walked forward to resume her duties.

Narran nods. "Until we next meet, laera," he called after her, eyes fixed on the wiggling piece of Quarian anatomy. He was reminded of that Human and Turian in Afterlife discussing sexual attraction between species, a conversation that was more fit for Citadel ambience. After a long discourse on the Human attraction to mammary glands – a sentiment shared by Quarians and Asari – and Turian attraction to the midriff for reasons he didn't recall anymore, they looked each other in the eye for a few minutes in total silence before raising their drinks in tandem. 'Hips and gluteal muscles?' the Human had asked. 'Hips and gluteal muscles,' the Turian had confirmed and they clinked glasses.

He remembered agreeing internally, though mammary glands had their own attractiveness. He shook his head to clear it from the random thoughts and looked for the lab supervisor. They had agreed with Aria that not all data could be sent on towards the Flotilla, but quite a bit could. One of Aria's men, a stranded Quarian named Kenn, had strict guidelines on what could be passed on and what could not.

He had initially questioned the wisdom of getting a Quarian to supervise other Quarians in order to _not _send on specific data to the Fleet, but recanted that when he saw what Aria had done for Kenn. She had saved his life on no less than three occasions, though how many of them were engineered and how many were not he did not want to guess, and stopped several other shops from hiking up the prices because Kenn was a Quarian, as was custom on many other planets, creating a powerful honour-debt that no one on the Fleet would mess with and that Kenn would honour if he wanted to keep calling himself a Quarian.

"Kenn," he greeted the Quarian who had been given the title of 'Overseer'.

"Narran," Kenn replied. "Here for another data-dump?"

He nodded. "Yeah, Tali got that new combat drone working and wants to send the preliminary data to the Admirals. No way was I going to say no to Tali."

Kenn laughed nervously and didn't succeed in suppressing a shiver. "I can empathize," he said. "She's scary when she's angry." He handed the other Quarian an OSD. "Here, almost everything passed the guidelines this time."

Narran grabbed the OSD and put it in a storage pouch. "Thanks, the Admirals will be pleased."

"Yes, they will," Kenn quietly assured him as he walked away.

– – – –

"... and that's all for now, Admirals. I've not looked at the data from the other team. Are there any messages you want me to pass on?" Narran finished his report with the customary bow.

"Yes, there is, actually," Admiral Koris remarked, bringing up a holographic projection of a Quarian in a blood-red suit. "This is Veetor'Nara, a Pilgrim working on the human colony Freedom's Progress. He hasn't responded to our hails after we received the news that Freedom's Progress was the next human colony to go dark. We want you to take a small group of ten and see what's what. We'd send an official squad of Marines but they're two weeks out."

Narran nodded silently. Such an assignment was easily doable, and their agreement with Aria had room for such trips. "Any particular individuals I should include in the squad?"

Admiral Koris gave his own nod. "Yes. The only fixed member of the squad is Tali'Zorah, who has a bit of history with Veetor. She is to be the squad leader."

Narran nodded again. "I'll get a group together. We'll depart tomorrow or the day after."

"Understood, Narran'Sharal," Admiral Koris replied. "Ancestors keep you. Keelah se'lai."

"Keelah se'lai, Admirals."

– – – – _The Next Day, Parnack – – – –_

Shepard greeted the open air with a sigh of relief. Her muscles ached, her blood was flowing down the outside of her skin to pool at her feet, and she was liable to just fall down from tiredness or blood loss any moment now.

She started a slow shamble up the hill to the residence of the chieftain. _Her _residence now, come to think of it. She would have to think of a way to keep someone aligned to her in charge, or ask sensei if there was any possibility for a permanent clone to stay behind. She may not have wanted to be a Yahg chieftain, but it was an asset she was not going to keen on giving up.

A yellow flash lit up the hillside behind her, and many of the Yahg that were watching her progress started to point and chat in their language. She was too tired to make out the words, but the tone of their voices was unmistakable, and apparently carried over between species.

Awe.

Had she not seen her blond sensei abuse the technique so often during the past two years, she'd be the same. True teleportation was very impressive, and no technology currently existed in Council space that could emulate it. She felt safe betting that Valern would be willing to mate with her sensei if he shared its secrets with the Council, as disturbing as the image was.

When the flash had subsided she could see all four of her sensei and Taigun gathered before her.

"Congratulations are in order, Chieftain Shepard," Naruto said as a way of greeting while Kokuo walked up to her with a bright green glow shrouding her hands.

"Thanks, sensei," she replied tiredly as the Five-Tails pumped healing chakra into her to close her wounds. Vaguely, she heard an astonished yell, "_that's _the new chief's master?" Apparently the translation bracelet was a universal one.

Ancestors bless Fūinjutsu.

"You fought well, Shepard," Yugito praised, and Shepard preened a little. Praise from Yugito was _rare, _unlike her husband.

"Naruto-kun flashed us to the ceiling support when Bee-koi reported that you were entering mortal combat with the chieftain, Shepard," Kokuo explained serenely. "I did not think it was possible for one to progress as much as you have in two years' worth of training, even if your teachers are the five of us."

"Thanks," she said before furrowing her brows a little. "Say, is it possible for a permanent, durable clone to exist here?" she asked, and four eyebrows rose to meet hairlines. She could have sword Taigun's eyeflaps twitched in an approximation of the same movement. "It's just, I am the chieftain now and therefore responsible for this village. In addition, having Yahg allies is not something I can just pass up, you know?"

The four nodded in understanding. "Cordial relations would be beneficial," Taigun chimed in. "We project an approximate thirty-three to eighty-seven percent chance that an established alliance with the Yahg is of positive influence in the approaching Reaper War. Variance in the estimate is induced by the unknown starting date of the Reaper War and unknown Yahg susceptibility to Indoctrination."

Shepard nodded. "Which is why I want a permanent clone here. A thousand something Yahg may be a drop in the galactic bucket numbers-wise, but even the scouts are on par with most Krogan less than two centuries old, and I can try and form alliances with other villages."

Naruto nodded. "I agree." After a moment of thinking, he turned to Yugito. "Chishio?" he asked.

"Could work, but they don't have native personalities," Yugito mused. "Combine blood with shadow through seals?"

Naruto charged a finger with chakra and started drawing a seal in mid-air. "We'd need a linker to stabilize the lateral transference, and some sort of focus connecting form and energy, but that does seem the most likely path to success. How do we ensure that clone and original remain synched? I don't think inducing a Path-like experience would be all that conducive to principal performance in the first half year, not to mention the unknown transmission speed and reliability of the Path seals over interplanetary distances, let alone intersystem ones."

"True," Yugito conceded with a thoughtful frown. When her eyes fell on Taigun her eyes lit up with an idea. "Entangled connection to a tertiary repository with REM-induced synch?" she posited excitedly.

"While the detectives among us," Kokuo said to Shepard over the excited clamor of the two blonds, "busy themselves with solving the latest mystery to appear before them, what say you to claiming your weapons, Shepard?" Kokuo offered. "Out of all of us, I was the most adept at actual engineering, not just research, and was most involved in modifying your weapons. Not that it was all that hard, the society that used to live on what you call Alchera was much more technologically advanced then yours."

"Just how advanced are we talking about, exactly?" Shepard wondered while restarting her interrupted climb, Kokuo, Kirabi, and Taigun trailing behind her.

"We were on the cusp of direct spatial-temporal manipulation through machinery. All that was required before we could do so was solving the various paradoxes involved with temporal translation."

Shepard felt her jaw drop. _Temporal translation? That sounds an awful lot like... _"Time travel?!" she exclaimed incredulously.

"We preferred, and I still do, the term temporal translation due to its reduced ambiguity," Kokuo replied. "But yes. In a nutshell, time travel."

"Ancestors," she breathed out. _Tech to travel through time, theoretically. __Ancestors before me. _"So what exactly was done to my equipment?" she asked curiously. If they were on the cusp of using to travel _through time _then weapon mods should be easy and spectacular, right?

"Like Naruto-kun said before, our modifications are not overt things. We can explain your chakra as a mutation in your element zero nodules – in fact, an isotope of element zero is at the heart of chakra –, but directed energy weapons would lead to more questions that we felt comfortable with."

"Wait, an isotope of eezo is what caused chakra?" Shepard asked incredulously.

"Indeed, though the process is more indirect than your statement implies," Kokuo confirmed with a nod. "The vast majority of eezo consists of twenty two neutrons in the nucleus, slightly positively charged because of interactions similar to what you call London dispersion forces that perform a sub-quantum process unique to a mass of pure neutrons with an electron shroud. One such effect is that the laws of physics are altered. In particular, the mass-energy relation is altered to a point that FTL travel is possible if the eezo is negatively ionized beyond its initial, half-positive charge.

"Chakra, on the other hand, started as a byproduct of the extremely rare twenty-_eight _neutron isotope of eezo. We were fortunate that a high concentration of the twenty-eight neutron isotope existed in significant enough quantities that all life was affected. All life was in possession of bioelectrical processes to produce chakra. What we are not aware of, however, is why all life, even at locations at significant distances from the nearest source of eezo-28 has chakra. Our early hypotheses involve dark energy."

Shepard nodded numbly. _Multiple isotopes of eezo. Ancestors, Adams and Tali are going to flip. _

"Can this twenty-eight isotopes be synthesized?" Shepard asked curiously. Eezo-22 was beyond the limits of current tech to fabricate, but perhaps Eezo-28?

"It can," Kokuo confirmed. "However, we required tech that took the four of us fifteen millennia to create, and we knew where to look and what to look for thanks to our near-divine status."

Shepard allowed her face to fall as she finally stepped inside her new living room. She took a moment to look around and take in the entire room, something she did not do before because she was more focused on her weapons. It was a curious mixture of modern and tribal styles. The furniture itself, its dimensions aside, would not stand out of place in offices of high-profile megacorps on Illium. Nor would it truly be out of style among the remnants of the Native Americans that adhered to the old ways, before the white man ever set foot on American soil.

In many ways, the Yahg were far more human than she expected given the environment on Parnack, though no one species fit the bill for a true one-to-one comparison. There were elements from the Krogan biology and culture, Turian culture, and Terran psychology, especially in body language.

It was very odd, as if someone took what they considered to be the best of each of those species and tried to engineer an entirely new race from it, but it had deviated from the blueprint somewhere along the river of time.

Shepard shook her head to clear it from her rapidly diverging train of thought. She eyed her weapons affixed to the wall, displayed like a human would hunting trophies. "So, to get back to my earlier question, what was actually _done _to my weapons?"

"For all weapons, heat generation has been curtailed by approximately 75% without losing penetrative power.

"For all practical intents and purposes, your pistol is now a sniper rifle without scope, not that you need one when you enhance your eyes with chakra. We were able to shoot the wings from a butterfly at more than four of your kilometres. Your shotgun has an in-built Carnage module that does not reduce the lifespan of the shotgun itself, as well as increased penetrative power and raw kinetic force of the projectiles. It is everything a Krogan-designed shotgun aims to be. As a result, I do not recommend getting caught with it, a cursory inspection of Council weapon design codes as provided by Taigun a year ago showed it broke no less than thirteen.

"Your assault rifle has been modified to allow two concurrent ammo modifications, in addition to increasing the kinetic force of each impact by approximately 33%."

"Two concurrent ammo mods? Do freezing and incendiary cancel each other out?" she asked. _Warp and phasing ammo..._ somewhere deep within her psyche, a chibi-Shepard drooled.

"We did not test such a combination, but theoretically they should cancel, yes. Two incendiary mods will not double the effect, though."

"I see," Shepard said as she reached for the two weapons and her omnitool attached to the wall. "and my omnitool?" she asked as she clipped the item in question in place.

Kokuo grinned and Shepard took an instinctive step back. _A grinning Kokuo is _not _a good sign. _

"We increased the processing power and memory capability, as well as implement a hud-style system that can cooperate with the suit of armour we have been designing with Taigun for the past year. You'll like it, Shepard."

She nodded and started the omni-tool, taking a few moments to re-acquaint herself with its basic functions after going two years without.

"Ancestors, this thing is fast," she said. She shut off the 'tool and yawned a very long and loud yawn.

It appeared that her earlier adrenaline was finally wearing off.

"That it is. We'll talk more tomorrow. I imagine that Naruto and Yugito have solved their puzzle by then."

Shepard nodded, and took a few steps to the closest couch. Before she reached it, her legs finally gave way and she crumpled. Before she could hit the floor, tightly snuggled into Morpheus' embrace, Kokuo caught her and took her to the chieftain's bed.

– – _The Next Day, Parnack – – – –_

"So," Shepard asked of her sensei and Taigun after a well-deserved rest, inwardly thanking Naruto for giving her such high regeneration while resting. "Any progress on that clone?"

"Yes," Naruto replied without hesitation. "We will require a bit of your blood, a **Kage Bunshin** and for you to fuel a sealing ritual that we've already prepared outside with enough chakra to power **Ryūsei Kazan **for five minutes. It's nothing truly special on your part except for the quantity of chakra it requires," Naruto finished with a shrug.

Shepard sighed and crashed into a chair. "Do whatever is necessary so I can get off this rock and into a proper bath somewhere on Illium or the Citadel."

"We're afraid your proper bath will have to wait, Shepard," Yugito said, her voice trying to comfort her student as much as possible.

"Why not?" she groused. "Is it too much to ask for a single proper bath?"

"The Collective has noticed a pattern that has extremely negative implications emerging over the past seven standard months and three days, Shepard-Spectre," Taigun said in his standard monotone.

Shepard slumped in her chair. So much for that bath. "Enlighten me."

"Human colonies have stopped responding to communications," Taigun explained. "Investigations by the megacorporations that sponsored these colonial programs have shown that all colonists have vanished."

"Seemingly instantaneously, humans have just up and left," Yugito continued where Taigun left off. "Food is left uneaten on the table with utensils close by, computers are left turned on, and transportation just dropped from the sky, as if the pilots vanished suddenly. Close to fifteen colonies have gone dark already, the latest of which is Freedom's Progress."

"You have expressed a desire to be re-introduced in person to your old crew, Shepard-Spectre," Taigun went of on an apparent non sequitur. Shepard nodded regardless, she'd not interacted much with Taigun over the past two years, he was a Geth and she wasn't going to trust him until he was vetted by her favourite Quarian, but the little she knew of him was that he _never_ went on non sequiturs.

"Coincidentally, a team of Creators has been dispatched to the colony of Freedom's Progress to retrieve a wayward Pilgrim. Leading this team is Creator Tali'Zorah vas Neema."

Shepard's eyes widened. Her little Tali was _leading _a team to get a Pilgrim back to the Flotilla?

A well of almost-motherly pride surged up within her. Damnit she was good. "That settles it, we're going to Freedom's Progress ASAP."

"Understood, Shepard," Yugito said readily. Shepard tilted her head in confusion.

"You run the show now, Shepard," Naurto explained. "We'll stick with you, at least for a while, but this is your galaxy, your generation, and unless things start to become _really_ messed up we'll just sit on the sidelines, offer advice, infuriate politicians, and generally be a peanut gallery."

Shepard nodded, standing up from her chair. "So what about the rest of my crew?" she asked.

"Vakarian-Lieutenant has disappeared from the galactic communications network," Taigun replied. "We project that there is a 67% chance he is the Omega vigilante Archangel, 45% chance he has assumed the identity of the Niacal vigilante Hunter, and a 78% chance he is operating under the name Undertaker on the joint Asari-Human colony Tortuga.

"Urdnot-Warlord has assumed near-complete control over the Krogan clans of Tuchanka.

"T'Soni-Broker has initiated an intelligence brokering operation on Illium.

"Williams-Gunnery Chief is currently engaged in a classified operation."

Shepard nodded. "Thank you, Taigun."

Just because he was a Geth didn't mean that she wouldn't appreciate information, and she doubted the Geth had a concept of purposeful misinformation the way organics did, though she could be wrong. Thinking about the Geth from a synthetic perspective rather than an organic perspective gave her a headache.

Fifteen minutes later, the permanent clone of Aurora Shepard officially assumed her station as Yahg Chieftain while the four Tailed Beasts, Taigun, and the original Shepard left the village in a flash of yellow.

Had the few Yahg with uncannily good eyes been looking in the right direction an hour after their departure, they would have been able to spot a sleek, grey vessel lift into the air and vanish into the heavens beyond.

– – – –

**Translations: **

**Japanese:**

**Kage Bunshin: Shadow Clone**

**Doton: Dochū Eigyo; Earth Release: Underground Fish Projection **

**Meisaigakure no Jutsu: Hiding in the Camouflage Technique**

**Tōton no Jutsu: Transparency Escape Technique **

**Shunshin: Body Flicker**

**Karyūken: Sentenashi; Fire Dragon Fist: Whirling Leg (from Senten: Whirling, and Ashi: foot, leg, gait, pace, bottom kanji radical)**

**Chidori: Thousand Birds. Hyakudori, or Hundreds Bird, might be a better name for the version Shep uses in this chapter, though.**

**Ryūsei Kazan: Meteor Volcano. Original Lava Release technique. S-rank. Inspired by Akainu's technique of the same name (from One Piece). User creates a series of vertical magma tubes near the user that rapidly and repeatedly shoot globs of magma into the stratosphere, at which point they hit the apex of their flight path and fall to the earth. Used as both Anti-Air, as with all 'Kazan' techniques, and uniquely as long-range wide-area artillery. Should Tailed-Beast level chakra be used to supply the technique it can theoretically be used as Anti-Orbit artillery.**

**Kheelish: **

**Laera/Laerin: Beloved, male to female and female to male, respectively. Used only for the period between intent declaration and the actual bonds provided the other accepts the intent, the closest human equivalent term is 'fiancée'. Original creation.**

**Keelah Se'lai: By the homeworld I hope to see one day. **

**Kaihar: Captain. Original creation.**

**Yahg: **

**Ch'jaflga: Unit of mass equal to approximately twenty-five Terran kilograms. **

**Kro'fltal: Warrior**

– – – –

**A/N: In case it wasn't clear, the Clone Shepard remaining on Parnack is created by fusing a blood clone (original creation as far as I know, essentially a life-like Water Clone with as much durability as the original) with a shadow clone (for the personality), and then linking the minds of the clone and original to a memory repository located in a pocket dimension created by Naruto. While awake, the seal records neural activity and transmits it to the repository. Whenever either Shepard enters REM sleep, the repository synchronizes with the mind. This allows the original Shepard to follow the developments on Parnack as they occur, though slightly delayed. **

**It wasn't in my original plan for the story, but I can't see Shepard giving up the massive potential the Yahg have as an asset. Who knows, it might come in handy during the Reaper War.**

**By the way, the few words of Yahg language I have were created by – literally – blindly mashing my keyboard and interspersing random spaces and apostrophes. I then changed a few vowels to consonants and vice versa to get a Lovecraftian vibe.**

**Also, yes, the chieftain is 400 kg. **

**The fight between Shepard and the chieftain is pretty epic, in my opinion, but it'll be shown later. As in, when Shepard inevitably lets slip she's now a Chieftain and someone asks how that happened. I didn't want to bloat the chapter to more than 20k words.**

**Next Chapter: Freedom's Progress!**


	6. Freedom's Progress

**Not my best work, but this chapter simply did not want to be written after I completed Shepard's initial scene.**

**In this chapter: Freedom's Progress!**

**Updated 2015-Feb-20 to remove an inconsistency.**

**Ancients from Alchera**

Freedom's Progress was one of the newer human colonies in the Terminus, and fairly large for its age. It was, like many of its kin, sponsored by Exogeni and boasted a population of slightly more than 910 000 souls. Like its sister colonies, Freedom's Progress boasted only minimal defences; a small militia-cum-police force, some Loki and FENRIS mechs, and a single YMIR heavy mech. That was the official story, any way. Truth was that Freedom's Progress had quite a bit more mechs than it reported.

It was still in its first year of existence, and the vast majority of buildings were the drab grey of prefab material as a result. The planet was slightly colder than Earth, but featured an equatorial belt where moderate temperatures reigned year-round, though slightly on the colder side of the moderate spectrum. It is still sufficient to grow enough crops to feed a population half its size, and its status as an Exogeni holiday location ensured that the company was interested in keeping the colony alive... not that it had to do much to accomplish this. Freedom's Progress was located at a very fortunate location; smack dab in the middle of the territories of four major Terminus pirate lords. Under normal circumstances Freedom's Progress defences would have seen it overrun before the week was out, but each of these local powers had a vested interest in keeping some neutral ground for meetings, purchasing supplies, weapons, thermal clips, and the like.

It was a very profitable colony with a lot of promise in its future, even if it was a Terminus colony.

And it was absolutely, utterly, _devoid_ of life.

Like Yugito said back on Parnack, dinner plates were left on the table, food uneaten. Utensils were strewn about in such a way that it appeared to have been in the process of making a standard journey from plate to mouth before the holder suddenly vanished.

Computers were left turned on, sometimes with content that she wished she could erase from her brain. She _did not _need to know that Fornax made live-action hentai re-enactments using Hanar.

Bee, on the other hand, was look at the screen with a thoughtful frown. Kokuo hummed equally thoughtfully and turned a questioning eye towards her husband, who turned to return the look.

Shepard hurried away lest she get scarred for life. She didn't make it in time.

"Don't think it's gonna work, ya dig? My tentacles are way too big."

"DAMNIT BEE!" Naruto roared even as Kokuo sadly agreed and Yugito gave the rapping octo-man a chakra enhanced punch that sent him through the wall. "WE DID NOT NEED TO KNOW!"

Meanwhile, Shepard half-walked half-ran through another prefab housing construct, desperate to find _something _to take her mind off the mental image, and found her wish was granted in the next room.

_That's convenient,_ she thought, but she was not fool enough to deny what her eyes told her when she looked at the orange haptic screen displaying the room she was in.

An active webcam that was still recording. By the looks of things, it had been recording for at least three planetary days, which meant that there was a good chance that an indication for the reason the colony was empty was on file.

"Hey sensei!" she yelled to the previous pre-fab unit where her two blond sensei were still expressing their displeasure with Killer Bee. "I've got something!"

Five sets of footfall rushed to her location, and Shepard swiftly took to navigating through the computer's directory to find its video folder. It took almost exactly as long as it took the other five of her party to arrive.

"What do you have?" Naruto asked.

"A webcam was still recording," she replied as she pulled up the massive file. "Looks like its been running for a few local days, so there's a good chance we've got a culprit on record."

"Sweet!" Naruto exclaimed jubilantly.

"A good find," Kokuo agreed. "Taigun, can you connect to the terminal to make a copy?"

"Affirmative."

While Taigun performed the actions necessary to connect to the terminal, Shepard played the video.

– – – –

Contrary to Shepard's earlier assessment of Freedom's Progress, it was not _entirely _devoid of life even excluding the party of Bijuu, Spectre, and True Geth. Three groups, totalling thirteen people, were on the colony.

One of these groups, consisting of a single rather curious and obviously non-human individual, was currently in the central security station, monitoring several large screens that displayed footage from various locations around the colony.

Contrary to the psychological norm for his kind, he had never been all that fond of crowds even before he had a suit rupture that messed with his brain due to his species' relatively weak immune systems, and made him nervous around more than a small handful of people. It was for this reason that he had volunteered to serve his Pilgrimage on Freedom's Progress, a nice, small Human colony out in the Terminus. When he joined it had approximately three-quarters of a million people but unlike the Flotilla there was _maybe_ one human every ten square metres, rather than twenty. He had nevertheless volunteered for the jobs that would put him in contact with as few people as possible, and it was quite likely this that had saved him.

The monsters came three days ago. The swarm froze them, then the monsters came and took them. From his position in the main security station he had reprogrammed all the mechs the colony had, both official and otherwise, to attack the monsters and their swarms. But the monsters ignored the mechs. The few Glacies-model mechs, the ones that actually posed a threat, were swiftly taken out. He decided to keep the YMIR in reserve after that.

"Mechs will protect."

Deep in his gut, he felt something. The monsters would do worse than kill the humans that had been so kind to him. He was unable to protect, but he could grant a swift release.

"Mechs will keep safe. Safe from swarms."

He released all recorded IFF signals from the mechs, excluding his own. The LOKI mechs, ignored up till now, switched targets from the monsters to the humans. Hundreds died before the monsters disabled the mechs, allowing the monsters to move unopposed, but they had not 'killed' the mechs. He was sure, now.

"Have to hide. Hide from monsters. Hide from swarms. Mechs will protect."

They knew that he was behind it. They were coming.

They would not take him.

– – – –

In another part of Freedom's Progress, two humans, one of each gender, were walking along empty walkways. Both walked in that particular way that told everyone watching them 'these two are dangerous'.

The slightly frantic look on the face of the woman did nothing to the contrary, and would have had anyone been there to see it.

"Yet again, everyone is gone," the man said soberly.

"I know," the woman replied.. "This colony vanished more recently than any of the others we've been to, there _has _to be something here."

"What makes you think that?"

"_There has to be something here!_"

"Alright, alright," he said in a placating tone, one of his hands raised in a gesture meant to accomplish the same. "Relax."

The woman turned piercing eyes on her companion, but stayed her tongue for he was speaking the truth. But then again, who _wouldn't _be high-strung in her situation? Her eyes roamed over the little of the colony they could see from where they were. A tiny movement in the distance caught her attention, but when she focused on it, it was already gone. She decided to remain weary. That looked suspiciously like the gleam of a Geth frame.

"Possible Geth here."

"Really? You sure you're not paranoid?"

"Positive."

He shrugged. "Fine by me, let's keep a weather eye."

They continued walking, weapons at the ready. They entered a cafeteria to the scent of stale food left half-eaten on plates, days-old spilled alcohol, cold coffee, and other scents they couldn't outright place... nor did they want to. They suppressed the shivers that ran up their spines.

"Looks like everyone just up and left in the middle of dinner," he commented idly.

"Indeed," she replied. "Just like the other colonies."

They swiftly moved through the eating area, glad that they had taken a moment to don full-body armour with the ever-important Quarian-inspired olfactory filters, and walked over a metal gangway that led them to a landing pad with several markings in different colours emblazoned upon it.

A large metal door blocked their path on the other end, and several large transport crates and metal barrels were strewn about here and there, as if they were being carried one moment and the humans carrying them simply were no longer there the next.

"Strange," she said. "No sign of struggle. No signs of distress. _Nothing. _Why did the colonists go so peacefully?"

"Good question," he said with a shrug as he went to inspect the locked door. "But I don't think the air can provide answers."

"Smart-ass."

"You know you love it," he replied. He fiddled with his omni-tool and soon a hissing sound made its presence known to the world.

The door slid open.

"Ladies first," he said with a flourish.

"Age before beauty," she replied with a smirk. It was technically true too, he was fifteen minutes or so older than her according to their birth certificates.

He snorted. "I'd rather be old than have fangirls or fanboys."

She did not succeed in suppressing a shiver. "Point. Let's go."

"Right behind you."

– – – –

In yet another part of Freedom's Progress, the second group was currently inside a prefab construct they were pretty sure once served as a town hall of sorts. The ten obviously non-human figures sat, stood, or paced agitatedly. One or two were clearly exasperated, a few more were blatantly frustrated, and the last two?

The last two really could not care less. It was not as if their objective was an unknown to any of them, though the current Squad Leader had the most history with their objective, and to that they could add the fact that their objective was skittish, shy, and had been so for a long time.

He was not going anywhere soon.

"Okay," one of the frustrated figures in full enviro-suits said. "We've combed the north, west, and east. No Veetor. Therefore, he must be in the south."

"Stunning deduction, Zorah," another said. "Truly, positively ground-breaking logical reasoning."

"Shut the hell up, Prazza," the now-identified Zorah replied testily, turning a Quarian stink-eye on the one that spoke up. "I don't see you coming with something better."

Zorah snorted when Prazza remained silent. "Thought so."

"Squad Leader Zorah," a third interjected, "we've detected eight heat signals coming down from orbit... six of them do not match any known racial profile, the other two are Human."

"Locations?" Zorah asked.

"The six non-humans are in the east, nearing the south. The two humans have landed in the west, also near the south."

"I see. Keep an eye on them and inform me if our paths are about to cross, Narran," she ordered.

Narran nodded. "Will do, Tali."

Tali'Zorah nodded. "Let's go."

– – – –

"**Load these Humans into the pods and prepare them for Ascension**," the dark-brown figure with yellow glowing lines running across its skin, giving the impression of a cracked skin, and four glowing yellow eyes said while motioning with an arm to the human whose webcam recording they were now watching. The video had started shortly before this point, as if the human was scrambling to respond to an emergency signal of some kind.

"Ascension?" Naruto growled as they watched bipedal bugs take the inhabitants away, not noticing the camera rolling. A heavy pressure settled over them all, and Shepard gulped, only barely clinging to consciousness. She'd only seen Naruto lose control once, and that was more than enough for her liking, and she was two miles away.

"I don't think they mean it _that _way, Naru-koi," Yugito said in her best soothing tone, stroking two of the nine red tails belonging to the blond with her two fiery-blue ones. "Remember the Iovinoh?"

Naruto calmed down. "You're right. They _could_ be similar to the Iovinoh," the blond admitted. "I'm still going to watch them as close as I can, however."

"No argument there, Naru-koi."

"Who were the Iovinoh?" Shepard asked curiously. She'd never heard of that species before, and they apparently had some history with her sensei.

"Egotistical narcissistic pricks who forcibly converted other species into new members of their own through some pretty impressive genetic manipulation, a process they referred to as 'Ascension'," Naruto replied curtly. "We initially confused it with Ascension to Divinity and kicked their asses back to the stone age before we realized our error."

"Sounds like friendly people," she replied cheekily.

"Species identification complete," Taigun abruptly said just as Naruto opened his mouth to reply. "The individuals on the video recording match recorded Collector profiles to 90% at a 5-sigma level of confidence."

"Collectors?" Shepard asked, surprised. "Weren't they a myth to scare Terminus lowlifes into compliance?"

"Negative, Shepard-Spectre."

Shepard scowled. "Absolutely wonderful," she said in a sour tone. "Bloody bugs."

She got up and grabbed her new assault rifle. They still had the majority of the colony to search through for answers. "Let's not dawdle. We still don't know _why _or _how. _The latter is currently more important. Let's go."

"Right behind you, Shepard."

– – – –

The group of ten entered another prefab building they were pretty certain once hosted many a night of entertainment, if the multiple stages with poles attached to them were any indication. "A strip club," one of them commented incredulously. Several snorted.

"Alright, how are you all doing so far?" Tali asked, ignoring the ambience. They had split up for a bit a kilometre ago because of the sheer number of mechs they picked up on the scanners. Tali swore that the amount of mechs was far larger than the colony should have had, but wouldn't put it past the colonists to purchase some on the black market from the four pirate lords that used Freedom's Progress as neutral meeting ground. It wouldn't surprise Tali if they had taken out three battalions of mechs already. At least the Loki and FENRIS mechs were easy to hack or they would have been in real trouble.

"Thermal clip supply down to half," Narran reported promptly. "Several minor suit breaches, but the seals are holding and the antibiotics are taking care of it."

"Likewise, though my thermal clip supply is less drained than Narran's," Sheila reported.

Similar reports came from the other seven, and Tali nearly growled. This was supposed to be a simple search-and-extract, Ancestors be damned! She forcefully expelled a breath, allowing the motion to do its part in calming herself.

"We'll rest here for an hour, get some breath back into our bodies and calm into our minds. Teelar, Sheeran, Nahir," she barked to the three Quarians who were the best at strategy. She wasn't a slouch herself, but those three were far better at it than herself. They snapped to attention.

_No one _wanted to be on the receiving end of the Wrath of Tali, or even her displeasure. "Bring up the map. Veetor must have access to the security mainframe in order to hack all the mechs at once. We're going to plan an effective route to it."

"Understood, ma'am," the three said, and they joined Tali in a corner with a holographic map hovering in between them. The others dispersed throughout the room, reaching into pouches for tubes of fluid and tubes of food-paste. All of it triple-sterilized, of course.

After half an hour of planning, a cry of "Contact imminent!" from Narran had them all grabbing weapons just as two doors on either side of this building opened. Without any communication five weapons were pointed to each door, ready to open fire should the entries be hostile.

The door Tali and the three with her had focused on opened to admit five humans with raised weapons.

On closer inspection, one human and four humanoids.

At least, she wasn't aware of a sub-species of human that had _tails_. The apparent leader, the only one without tails, took a good look at her and she somehow got the impression that she knew her. A few moments of tension were broken when the lead human collapsed her weapon, and they lowered theirs.

The figure turned the polarization of her faceplate off, and Tali desperately wanted to rub her eyes_._

From what she could see, flaming red hair crowned a sharp, angular face devoid of any fat; the product of several years in military service. The brown eyes looked at her with warmth and affection, and Tali suddenly noticed that she wasn't holding her shotgun any more and that her hands were trembling.

Scratch that, her entire _body _was trembling.

"Ancestors, Tali, it's good to see you again," the figure said brightly as her hands moved to take off her helmet. Tali gasped. She recognized that voice, and the entire picture fit together nicely.

"S-" she began, but choked on something. She tried again, desperately wishing that her eyes were not deceiving themselves. She had received that message a few months ago, but knowing and _seeing _were a different matter entirely. Her voice cracked from the raw emotion in it. Hope, that her Captain really had been returned to her. Joy, as she was increasingly aware of the fact that this was _her Kaihar. _Trepidation, for what if her Kaihar didn't want her back? It had been two years, after all was said and done. What if Aria didn't allow her to join her Kaihar's crew again?

"Shepard?"

– – – –

Shepard exited yet another empty prefab building and entered one the many plazas of Freedom's Progress, her rifle at the ready. Unlike the other plazas they had seen so far, this one featured a lot of white mechanical parts strewn everywhere, and the ground was pock-marked by small craters as well as locally blackened from exposure to an open flame.

"Was a war fought here or something?" Shepard asked without expecting an answer as she approached one of the fragments that looked more intact than others and ran a quick diagnostic with her omni-tool.

_Scanning... scan complete. Structure component 95% match with top-left breastplate of Loki-model mech. Structure component 85% match with bottom-right 'ribcage' of FENRIS-model mech. Structure component 78% match with left forearm of Ciala-model mech. Structure component 65% match with right-side breastplate of Glacies-model mech. Structure component 48% match... _

Shepard closed the screen.

"What the hell?" she exclaimed softly, disbelief evident in her voice. "They managed to get the Loki and FENRIS mechs from experimental to mass-production in two years?"

"Affirmative, Shepard-Spectre," Taigun answered.

Shepard shook her head. _H__ow stupid can people get for the sake of credits?_ "Any design faults that weren't caught by testing due to rushed production?"

"Affirmative," Taigun answered in his standard masculine monotone. "Multiple weaknesses exist, the most predominant of which is sub-standard cyberwarfare safeguards in the standard model. This weakness has been mitigated in more advanced models, but is still sub-par to most other mechanized sentries. There is additionally a structural weakness in the left hip-joint."

"So they're easy to hack, that's always nice to know," Shepard mused, glad that her two years on Parnack had her testing her digital mettle against Geth-produced firewalls once per week. She wasn't allowed an omni-tool, but her sensei were adamant she kept those skills in addition to the new skills she was learning while there, and it had been a very productive two years. She already had a few ideas for new weapons, especially since Naruto told her that chakra conductive metal was a titanium-beryllium-tungsten alloy she could quite easily make herself if she had the, common enough, base compounds available and a precise enough scale. The only difficulty was mixing it because the material was apparently pretty sensitive to minor deviations from the ideal composition, but in return she got a material that was thermally stable to seven thousand Kelvin, and required only minimal treatment to stop oxidation.

Chakra conductive metal in a weapon plus lightning chakra could potentially make a hand-held railgun.

Just thinking about it made Shepard drool.

"I'm guessing the standard models are cheap enough to justify buying them even with such a massive deficiency?"

"Affirmative."

"Well, that's good news. On-the-spot allies," Shepard said with a feral grin. "Well, cannon fodder at least," she swiftly amended.

"Contact," Naruto suddenly said over the squad's intercom. "The building south-southwest of the plaza has ten Quarian signatures, with two Human ones closing in fast."

"Acknowledged," Shepard responded swiftly. "Naruto and Yugito, take position to the left of the door. Bee and Kokuo, right. Taigun... on top of that roof to our back. These are Quarians and they don't exactly trust you, and I don't want to get shot before I can explain things."

"Affirmative," the five chorused as one. Shepard trailed the retreating form of Taigun with her eyes, not wanting to open the door until he was safely out of sight. "This unit is in position, Shepard-Spectre."

She nodded. "Acknowledged."

She walked up to the door and gave the order to open it. Her eyes swiveled over the general features of the room. Stages with poles, good for makeshift clubs should the need arise. Two darkened windows five metres to the east and six to the west. One other door at the other end of the room. Ten figures in envirosuits, _Quarian. _Five with their backs turned towards the other door, where two humans were standing. _Is that a Cerberus insignia? _Five with their weapons pointed towards them.

Behind a stage to her left, distance fifteen metres. One Quarian, male. Weapon, assault rifle.

Behind a stage to her right, distance ten metres. Four Quarians, three male one female. Weapons, three assault rifles and a shotgun.

Secondary weapons: unknown.

Shepard focused on the female Quarian. _That shotgun looks familiar... _Shepard was sure she had seen that particular shotgun before. Its appearance was similar to a standard-model Scimitar shotgun, but she could not shake the feeling that she _knew _that shotgun. She decided to channel chakra to her eyes to focus them, confident that the Quarians would not fire until they had received confirmation her group and herself were hostile.

They were human, and not obviously affiliated with Cerberus, so they had the benefit of the doubt.

The barrel was modified, but nothing that was not available on the legal market. The grip, on the other hand... While redundant these days, the sound of a shotgun being cocked was still an excellent intimidating factor, and Shepard had engraved the slides on a fair number of shotguns with her own brand of awesome. It was one of the few shapes she could draw perfectly with her eyes closed, and the reason for her nickname.

A phoenix with its wings raised into the air, as if arising as an adult from a pile of ash.

It so happened that this slide featured one such phoenix, and Shepard could only draw one conclusion; this was Tali. Her sweet, shy, Tali.

Cancelling the flow of chakra to her eyes, she sheepishly admitted to herself that she should have looked at the veil all Quarians wore first. Each clan had their own identifying pattern, and this one matched the one used by the Zorah clan.

Since Tali told her that her mother had died long before, there could only be one conclusion.

This was Tali.

_Her _sweet, shy, innocent, and naïve Tali'Zorah nar Rayya, though she felt fairly confident saying that there was now a 'vas' suffix as well. She also supposed the last two were less applicable these days if Tali was leading a team of Quarians to return a Pilgrim to the Flotilla.

"Shepard-Spectre," Taigun said at a low volume in her earpiece. "Creator Tali'Zorah is the individual aiming a shotgun at your cranium."

"I know," she replied softly, below the pick-up threshold of the envirosuits' microphones.

She collapsed her weapon, which bled a lot of the hostility from the atmosphere as the Quarians lowered their own.

Her hands rose, and a soft click could be heard, softly followed by a hiss as the seal on the hard-suit – an old design from the Alliance that was all the Geth could manufacture on the trip from Parnack to here, though not from lack of desire if such a word could be applied to Geth – released. Her hands gripped the helmet and pulled it off with a flourish, allowing her shoulder-length hair – for once, regulations actually were somewhat smart! – to be clearly seen.

"Ancestors, Tali, it's good to see you," she said brightly.

"S-Shepard?"

– – – –

Two pairs of eyes, one blue one brown, stared into the barrels of five rifles aimed their way. Considering what their organization had done to the Flotilla a year and change ago, that was actually a good thing. It meant that these five were cool-headed enough to not shoot them immediately. For a few minutes, as the two sides steadfastly ignored the happenings on the other side of the strip club, no one moved.

"What are you doing here, Cerberus scum?" the apparent leader of this squad spat at the two operatives.

"This is a human colony," she retorted, "we have as much, if not more, right than you to be here."

The leader snorted, but stayed silent.

– – – –

Tali ran forward and tackle-hugged her former captain. She could almost feel the comforting warmth of her captain's embrace seeping through the material of her envirosuit.

She frowned. The warmth was _actually _seeping through, which should not be possible. It was like she was hugging an air conditioning unit set to slightly above room temperature. She pushed it to the back of her mind for now.

Right now, all she wanted to do was bask in her Kaihar's embrace, and damn the mission for a few moments.

"Who's that, Tali?" Sheeran asked and Tali nearly growled at him for ruining this moment.

"This is my Kaihar, Shepard."

Sheeran frowned. "Shepard is dead, Tali. More to the point, if she wasn't Shepard is _human_, and the IR and UV feeds place this woman as decidedly _not so_."

Shepard snorted. "Remember that data you obtained after we got out of that situation on Solcrum?" she asked, mindful not to use the words 'I gave' where other Quarians could hear. Pilgrimage gifts were supposed to be earned, and while Tali did earn that data, the fact that the data was a reward for her efforts would be detrimental, since Shepard had, in a sense, 'given' Tali the data.

"I did, and that proves that this is Shepard as only the two of us ever knew where that data came from," Tali explained. "Not to mention that her _tai'ra_ is unchanged."

"Fair enough," Sheeran said with a shrug. Shepard made a mental note to ask Tali about this _tai__'__ra _later, and why it proved so effective in convincing the other Quarian.

"Soooo," Tali drawled. "Not that I am not overjoyed to see you, Kaihar, but what are you doing here?"

"Sensei," she said, pointing her thumb over her shoulder at the four behind her, "told me of colonies going dark. I came here to find out what's what."

Tali nodded. "We're here for a stranded Pilgrim," she said. "He's an old childhood friend of mine, name's Veetor'Nara nar Rayya."

"Want some help?" Shepard offered. "We found out who took the colonists a while back, but we've yet to find anything on _how _the colonists were taken out. If your Veetor is where I think he is, the main security station, then our goals align."

She allowed some of the tension to bleed from her face, softening her features. "Besides, it'll be good to go to battle with the other honorary Urdnot again."

Tali laughed. Quarian laughs were a curious sound, morphed as they were by the voice modulators in their helmets. "That it will, 'battle-sister'."

"You can't seriously be thinking of working together with a _human_, Zorah!" Prazza yelled suddenly. "This is a Flotilla affair!"

"Prazza..." Tali half-growled, "shut up."

"I don't think I will, Zorah. You're obviously emotionally compromised in this situation."

"I'll show you _emotionally compromised_," Tali snarled, but before she could do so she was held back by a hand on her shoulder. Surprised, she turned around. "Kaihar, what are you doing?"

"Allow me," was all she said, piercing Tali with her gaze.

Tali waved a hand in the general direction of Prazza. "Be my guest, just don't kill him. The paperwork would be a mess."

Shepard looked at Prazza and her mind started racing. _Flicker over and knock him out? No, that won't work with my new strength. I'm surprised the hard-suit has held as long as it has without signs of failing, never mind what I can do to a Quarian's envirosuit. Fire and Earth are out for the same reason. Lava... just no. _

_That leaves lightning. Something that shocks, but doesn't overload or short any circuits, yet is powerful enough to knock out. __Hmm... Right. Electromagnetic Murder it is._

She gathered her chakra and surreptitiously ran through the Snake, Boar, and Dragon handsigns before whispering, "**Raiton: Jibashi**."

A strong surge of lightning that Shepard was sure would only knock Prazza out without harming the systems he depended on for survival lanced out from her hands, and she could almost feel the impact of her 'battle-sister' introducing the floor to her jaw.

The lightning struck Prazza, and Shepard grinned viciously at his short-lived screams before he slumped over and fainted. Shepard cancelled the lightning and turned to Tali with the vicious grin still on her face.

– – – –

The two Cerberus agents, and the five Quarians keeping an eye on them, turned to face the other side of the strip club – the Quarians keeping the Cerberus agents in their sight regardless – when they heard Prazza yell out about working together with humans. Most of the Quarian populace was not as prejudiced against humans as they were the other species of the Council, but especially after that mess with the _Idenna_ a year ago humans were not as trusted as they once were.

They raised unseen eyebrows – one of the few Quarian expressions that could be successfully hidden to others, even those familiar with Quarian body language – at the mention of being emotionally compromised, an accusation that generated the usual response.

Snarling and violence.

They raised a second eyebrow when the unknown human stopped Tali from retaliating and decided that, if nothing else, they would find out how this human stopped the Wrath of Tali so easily.

They looked at each other in confusion when the human in question made a few strange motions with her hands.

The seven outright gaped when they saw the lightning jump from the human hands to strike Prazza, who screamed and fainted.

"What," one gasped, "in the name of the Ancestors was that?"

"I have no idea. Some sort of hand-mounted arc generator?" another posited.

"Those would be too big. Good idea for an anti-electronic weapon, though. Maybe an assault rifle or flamethrower-type weapon?"

"Pass it by Kal'Reegar when we get back? If there's anyone who can figure it out, it's the Reegar."

"True enough."

The five Quarians were so engrossed in their conversation that they completely missed the Cerberus woman walk past them, though it appeared that the other five had not missed this, if their freshly raised weapons were any indication. Scrambling, they raised their own at the woman's back, ready to fire should she become a threat.

– – – –

"How?" Tali asked faintly.

"Because I'm awesome," she replied smugly. When a cough broke the silence she added, "and the excellent tutelage of my four sensei, I guess."

"Thank you," Yugito said dryly.

"You're welcome," Shepard responded equally dryly, before she spotted movement from the corner of her vision. When she spotted the broken dual hexagonal that was the familiar, and very much _hated, _logo of Cerberus, she re-drew her weapon and aimed it at the approaching woman's face.

Within three seconds, the four still-conscious Quarians on her side and her four sensei had joined her.

"What do you want, _Cerberus_?" Shepard spat. After the experiments on Rachni, the Thorian, gene mods with _questionable _moral implications, and the entire situation with Toombs... she was not Cerberus' biggest fan, to put it mildly.

As far as she knew, that went both ways.

"Miranda Lawson," the woman introduced herself. "We've been looking for you, Spectre Shepard."

Shepard raised an eyebrow. "Really? Most Cerberus agents I've met so far disagreed. Most of those gave that impression when they _shot at me_. Give me one good reason I shouldn't do the same right now."

"Human colonies are disappearing. Like this one, every man, woman, and child is simply _gone. _The Council doesn't care, the Alliance is too bogged down to do anything. Only Cerberus can help."

Despite what her heart told her, Shepard considered the proposal. Despite the rather 'ethics-free' approach to their work, the projects themselves _were _run efficiently. Without a doubt, an alliance with Cerberus would get things done. Something she could not necessarily say about the Council and definitely not the Alliance. The information network at Cerberus' command was supposedly third-best only to the Salarian Special Tasks Group and the Shadow Broker.

However, doing so meant allying with people who did not see anything wrong with torture, murder, extortion, baiting marines into a Thresher Maw nest, and many, many more crimes including but not limited to brainwashing, arson, and rape.

So no. No alliance with Cerberus. Not now, not _ever_. The taint of Cerberus ran too deep for her to ever work with the organization, but it wouldn't hurt to reinforce the lesson.

She leaned forward and looked Miranda dead in the eye.

"Get out of here, Miranda Lawson," she snarled. "I will not, now or ever, work with Cerberus no matter the cause."

She let loose a significant amount of her Killing Intent, known as Sakki or KI depending on who you asked, tightly focused on Miranda. She smirked when she saw the pupils dilate in fear, the instinctive half-step backwards, and the sheen of a thin layer of gleaming sweat.

"Get out of my sight, Miranda Lawson," she said as she shut off her KI. "The next time we meet, it will not end so well."

Miranda nodded frantically and turned around. She motioned for Jacob to follow her.

_Lightning from her hands,_ Miranda thought incredulously as the Cerberus pair walked away from Freedom's Progress, _and that pressure that made me see visions of my own death over and over. Just what _is _she? _

Miranda supposed there was a silver lining to it all, though. At least Project Lazarus had been scrapped. Project Lazarus was about control as much as revival, and Miranda was unsure if she could control a woman with that kind of intensity, nor was she in a hurry to find out. What had happened to her on Alchera?

That left the matter of her report to the Illusive Man. She had found Quarians, Shepard, and a whole lot of nothing else.

_Yes_, she thought with a nod, _nothing was here, like all the other colonies that have disappeared so far. _Nothing _at all._

He was not going to be happy, but her boss was going to have to _deal with it_.

– – – –

"Why, of all things, did we have to encounter the YMIR mech?" Shepard asked of the air.

They had departed the strip club, leaving two behind to tend to the now-unconscious Prazza. They had encountered a lot of mechs, but they were not something Shepard could handle even before she gained chakra, though the gaining of such did cost her her biotics. Naruto had mentioned that biotics and chakra were essentially mutually exclusive for reasons he was not sharing.

They had turned a corner approximately five hundred metres from the main security station when they heard the missile flying towards them. Shepard was good, but she wasn't good enough to stop a rocket in mid-flight without some preparation. Fortunately, the Quarians that were the targets of the missile had the sense to sprint forward and dive behind some conveniently placed crates.

And then the damn chaingun opened fire. Bullets flew a lot faster than missiles, and not even the Bijuu were good enough to stop 1200 bullets per minute flying at mach 1.5, though Shepard suspected that the problem was volume, not speed.

Three of the seven Quarians were lost almost instantly to the hail of bullets before the others responded by diving into cover.

"Just like old times, eh Tali?" she said conversationally to the young woman sitting side-by-side with her behind a low wall.

Tali nodded. "Just like old times," she agreed. "On three?"

"On three."

The count of three saw two figures rolling out of the protection afforded by the crate.

Tali pumped a few shotgun rounds into the YMIR, but barely dented its shields. She rushed forward to another crate, blasting the mech with her shotgun all the while.

Shepard mimiced her on the other side, running and gunning with her assault rifle in hand. "Come on you sumbitch," Shepard snarled as she ran forward to another low wall, the machine gun stichting the plascrete at her heels. "Tali, if you have any tricks for dealing with these buckets of bolts, now's a good time to use them!" she yelled.

"Sorry, this model of mech is shielded against my old tricks, and I've not yet had time to make new ones!" she replied. "Don't your friends have some of their own?"

"We do," Naruto interjected. "You want a mech deep-fried, grilled, or in pieces?"

"Any will do," Tali said. "Just hurry up, the mech's eating through my cover!"

"Right-o, Miss Zorah," a voice Tali was unfamiliar with said.

"Mech, go deviate. The rest, I abbreviate!"

A blur slammed into the mech, kicking up a cloud of dust from the impact that blocked even the enhanced sight of a Quarian. Tali could hear the crackle of electricity coming from the cloud before a high-pitched keening sound was heard.

"Watch out, it's gonna blow!" Tali yelled.

_Beep... Beep...Beep..Beep.. ._

**Boom.**

Despite being in cover, Tali was blinded as the mech went up in a fiery blaze, the heat washing over them all, making them feel as if they were standing near an active open furnace. The dust cloud dispersed from the explosion, and Tali carefully looked over the edge of the crate to find any trace of it, but the mech was simply gone.

"Maybe I should have said that the new model YMIR has a self-destruct mechanism?" Tali said sheepishly over the comms. She would figure out what the blur was later, when she had a chance to review footage of the fight.

"That would have been nice to know," Shepard responded dryly. "Any way to avoid a fiery holocaust?"

"You've got to give them a headshot, though it would be more accurate to say a 'head_blow_' because the detonation can only be avoided if the head is missing from the mech."

"I see. Shall we go see what this former heap of scrap was guarding so zealously?"

"Let's."

– – – –

Shepard opened the door leading to the main security station and saw a red-suited Quarian frantically typing away.

"Monsters are coming. Have to hide. Hide from swarms."

"Veetor?" she asked, trying to get his attention.

"Mechs will protect. Safe from swarms. Have to hide. Hide from swarms."

"Veetor?" she asked, a little more pointedly this time.

"I don't think he hears you, Shepard. People in his situation rarely do," Naruto remarked.

"Speaking from experience?" she snarked, not expecting him to nod.

"Partially. I was in your shoes, a long time ago."

Shepard sighed and activated her omni-tool. The number one way to get the attention of someone fixated on something is, and will forever be, messing with the thing they're fixated on.

Such as turning off the screens.

Veetor turned around once his eyes rested on nothing but blank displays, and Shepard saw his eyes widen. "You're human," he said, surprised. "Where did you hide? How did they not find you?"

"Who did not find us, Veetor?" Shepard asked kindly, trying to remember that Veetor was a _kid_, not that much older than Tali when they first met, and Tali had done a lot of growing through life-and-death combat against a man bent on galactic destruction.

Shepard inwardly sighed nostalgically. Good times. Just her and her crew facing the dangers of the galaxy.

"The..." Veetor shivered. "The monsters."

Shepard frowned lightly, 'monsters' was so vague as to not be helpful, but she supposed it was as apt a description of the Collectors as she had ever heard.

"They brought the swarms. They took everyone."

"The swarms?" Shepard asked curiously. Nothing remotely resembling a swarm was seen on the webcam footage Shepard found earlier. Shepard noticed from the corner of her vision that Naruto stepped closer as well at the same time Veetor turned back to face the screens.

With a wave of his omni-tool, he reactivated the screens. After a bit of fiddling the screens started displaying video imagery.

"Looks like security footage," Shepard mused idly. "Must have pieced it together by hand."

She turned to her teacher. "Anything of interest, Naruto-sensei?" she asked when she noticed that he was staring at the screen with an intensity to rival the sun.

"Yes," was his curt reply. "Those are Ph'thaktlage if my eyes are not deceiving me."

"F'thacwhat?"

"Ph'thaklage," Naruto said absently. "We simply called them Wasps, for obvious reasons."

Shepard remained silent, waiting for him to continue.

"They have a paralysing sting. One sting is all it takes for full-body paralysis to set in, though the essential organs are kept functioning. They're fast, and usually their toxin is in your bloodstream before you notice it."

"The swarms find you, freeze you, then the monsters... take you away," Veetor said, seemingly agreeing with Naruto though it was hard to say due to his condition. "I managed to stun three, locked them up. Here," he said, producing a plasteel container with three angry bugs buzzing inside.

"Those are definitely Wasps, though they've been modified a bit," Naruto said, and then snorted. "Considering we practically wiped them out back in the day, that's not very hard to imagine."

"First the Iovinoh, now this... is there a species you _didn't _almost wipe out back in the day?" Shepard asked dryly.

"Plenty," Naruto replied seriously. "The species that weren't messing up the galactic balance en masse were left alone. We kind of liked our home on our home planet, so we rarely left... and then some idiot blew up our moon, and suddenly we _couldn't _leave anymore."

"Blew up your moon? That is a story I have to hear sometime. Right now, we've got a delirious Quarian and his data."

"Taking a copy from the data on his omni-tool would be best. Certainly easiest."

"Veetor?" Shepard asked softly, and successfully drew the attention of the young Quarian this time. "Do you mind if we take the swarm specimens and a copy of your data?"

"Take it," he said, tapping his omni-tool to establish a data transfer link. "I just want to get out of here."

The door hissed open behind them, and what little of his face Shepard could see told her that he recognized who entered. "Tali?" he asked hesitantly.

"Hello Veetor," Tali responded softly. "We're here to bring you home."

– – – –

_Poor Veetor, _Shepard thought as she watched the remaining Quarians help Veetor out of his hidey-hole. _No one that young should have to go through that, regardless of their mental state._

She was one of the few qualified to make such statements. Before the event, she was a perfectly normal teenager. These days, she _still _had nightmares sometimes. The blood, smoke, explosions, cages with humans, some of them still clothed some not – the latter more common among the women –, laughing Batarians...

Being one of the few survivors of a slave raid was not a picnic, Shepard could assure people.

She unclenched her hand, _when did I clench it?, _and opened a data transfer link with Taigun. That reminded her, she still had to introduce Taigun to Tali.

"Soo..." a female voice sounded from Shepard's shoulder, bringing her out of her thoughts. "What now, Shepard?"

Shepard smiled. No matter how bad-ass she had become, Tali was still the same guidance-seeking girl – woman now – she knew.

"Now?" she asked rhetorically, "we find the bastards and make them pay for it. Just like last time."

Tali nodded her head energetically, but slowed down mid-nod. Shepard noticed it and turned to face her.

"What is it, Tali?"

Tali fidgeted a little. "Well... I am employed now, and I'm not sure if my employer will allow me to join you..."

"Who's your employer now, then?" Shepard asked curiously.

"Aria T'Loak."

Shepard blinked. She had not expected that, but it played into her hands very well indeed.

"That's good," she said brightly, drawing a confused head-tilt from the young Quarian. "Because Omega was my first planned stop anyway."

Shepard brought a hand to her chin. "This entire ordeal needs a name, really. How does Operation: Bugstomp sound?"

"Catchy," Tali replied.

"Very well then," Shepard agreed. "We are now initiating Operation: Bugstomp, and its primary objective is... Wipe out the Collectors."

– – – –

**Translations: **

**Raiton: Jibashi; Lightning Release: Electromagnetic Murder. Canon.**

**A/N: Harbinger is supposed to have small caps. Damn you ff . net! *shakes fist* **

**Fun fact: every-time I tried to type 'shotgun', I got 'shotfun' instead. Yay Freudian slips?**


	7. Omega I: Arrival

**Disclaimer: I do not own Mass Effect or Naruto**

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><p><strong>Not even having my laptop stolen (on Feb 18) will hold me back from writing when my muse hits me! <strong>

**On another note, I would like to thank my mother for graciously allowing the use of her laptop during these troubled times.**

**This chapter is, like all my chapters so far, completely un-beta'd aside from a spell-check and grammar-check in Word and a single proof-read. The ending is a bit... awkward to me, but I couldn't find a good place to end it.**

**I would also like to take a moment to thank all of you, my readers. 100 reviews, 28k+ views, nearly 420 favs, nearly 520 follows, and 19 communities. I did not expect such a result for this fic (seeing as its my first) this soon, and you have made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Have a digital cookie! (::)**

**Now, without further ado, ONWARDS!**

**This chapter is the second chapter of the Ancients from Alchera: Part II: Building The Team, in which the crew reaches Omega.**

**Updated 20150308 to add line breaks that apparently disappeared while uploading.**

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><p><strong> The Ancients from Alchera<strong>

Her heart pounded within her chest as her digits stretched forward, reaching for the closest wall. Adrenaline shot through her as her suited fingertips completed their journey. She braced herself for any eventuality.

Nothing happened.

A few seconds later, she retracted them. She brought the fingers to her face and marveled at the fact that there was nothing out of the ordinary to be seen. No distortions of space-time, no sudden ending of reality… All she could see were the slight indentations that always appeared after touching something, similar to the way human skin was compressed when touching something.

With this new information in mind, she promptly partially blanked out, her brain unable to cope with the suddenly _real_ reality of her situation.

"_We are now initiating Operation: Bugstomp, and it's primary objective is…. Wipe out the Collectors," she remembered Shepard saying. _

"_And how are we going to do that?" she'd asked. _

"_Not alone, we're not. Not even with just the six of us. So I want to introduce you to someone," Shepard said as she fiddled with her omni-tool, and warnings popped up all over her HUD from her suddenly, temporarily, useless weapon. She half-frowned, half-swallowed. That was never a good sign. _

She was on a Geth ship. A _Geth_ ship. She was _not _a hostage, otherwise restricted outside of her own sense of self-preservation – enviro-suit or no enviro-suit, the vacuum of space kills indiscriminately, after all –, or in any way, shape, or form coerced into coming aboard in the first place.

"_Or some_thing_, rather," Shepard said as she rushed forward and enveloped her in a bear-hug, pinning her arms to her side. "Taigun, you can come out now." _

"_Affirmative, Shepard-Spectre," she heard a voice saying to Shepard from the volume of Shepard's speakers. It was flat, without inflection to give away a hint of gender or an accent to indicate a species. Who or what was it?_

_Within moments a sleek, silver-grey humanoid – wouldn't Quarianoid be better in this case? – landed with a soft thump in front of her, and she had her answer. She raged and thrashed futilely in the grasp of her Kaihar. "Let. Me. At. It!" she growled. _

_In spite of the threat of imminent disassembly, Tai- _The Geth _stood there immobile. What the Geth did next stopped Tali dead in her tracks._

"_This platform greets you, Tali'Zorah-Creator."_

It may have been the fact that the Geth talked. _Geth. Did. Not. Talk. _Even so, she gave it the benefit of the doubt _for now_. She would render further judgement until _after _she had disassembled the Geth and had a look at its source code. It may have been a Geth uninterested in pumping bullets into her, but she was not going to take any chances with her, or its proximity to her Kaihar.

Speaking of her Kaihar, what had happened to her? Her _tai'ra_ may have been unchanged, but everything else _did._ Her mass had changed, her other measurements had changed, and there was an intensity about her that she hadn't felt nearly as clearly during the hunt for Saren. In addition, the UV and IR readings she got were far, far, far too high to ever be human, and the four with her had UV and IR readings that could be summed up with 'she was lucky she turned the scanners off when she did or they would have gone boom'. And she didn't feel anything from being close to such warmth until she hugged her Kaihar, after which it almost immediately dissipated.

And then, of course, there was the lightning. She had initially thought it some kind of arc-generator, but dismissed that because something like that would have been visible. Arc-generators, even portable versions, were not small things. It could have been some form of biotics, and the strange hand contortions she had seen definitely indicated something like it, but Tali had no knowledge of elemental biotics. As far as she knew, biotics were limited to 'simple' dark energy manipulation.

"Tali?"

Speak of the devil. "S-Shepard," she replied with a half-stutter. "What bring you here?"

"Just wanted to check up on you, see how my favourite Quarian is doing."

"I'm the only Quarian you know, my Kaihar," she snarked, glad that her blush wasn't visible through her face-plate.

"True," Shepard admitted with a nod, leaning against the frame of the door. "That doesn't make it less true."

Tali nodded.

"So what does Kaihar mean?" Shepard asked, raising an eyebrow when she noticed Tali start to fidget like one of her first days on the Normandy.

"It essentially means Captain, Shepard," Tali explained, deciding not to mention the social context of the word, though she knew that her body language gave away that there was something more to it. In this case, a _lot _more.

"Uh huh," Shepard replied with a knowing smirk.

"So what have you been up to these days?" Shepard asked, thankfully not pressing for the reason she was fidgeting like she had when she first designed a modification to the Normandy and passed it on to Chief Engineer Adams for approval.

"N-Nothing a-all that much," she said, trying to sound nonchalant, and failing spectacularly. "I joined the _Neema_, Admiral Han'Gerrel's vessel, and spent the better part of the next standard year designing gadgets and weapons, and fixing machinery. Typical Quarian life, really."

"Tell me," Shepard half-ordered, probably to allow her to calm down. It was working. "I've always been curious to know what 'typical Quarian life' entails."

"Well," she started hesitantly, trying to remember what she had and hadn't told her Kaihar during the hunt for Saren. "My memory's a little fuzzy on what I told you when we were hunting for Saren, so forgive me if I tell you something you already know. You know the general outline of the Flotilla?"

"Yeah," she answered. "Fifty thousand vessels, housing seventeen million Quarians. Split into a Patrol Fleet, Heavy Fleet, a Civilian Fleet, and a Special Projects Fleet."

"You know more than most," she said. "So our vessels tend to be on the order of dozens of years old, and with our general resource situation we're often forced to deal with replacement parts that are half my age, but they're sometimes replacing parts that were crafted before I was born, or even before my father was born. For example, some parts of the Rayya, one of the three liveships and where I was born, are still the same parts that were there when we were exiled from Rannoch three hundred years ago."

Shepard listened attentively, her body language not showing if she had heard this information before or not. "And these liveships are?"

"The three largest vessels of the Migrant Fleet. They were made as a contingency, in case we ever found ourselves in need of an extended duration in space, to provide sort-of fresh produce and living space for a lot of people. In hindsight, it turned out to be a brilliant idea. Of the seventeen million Quarians remaining today, a full ten and change live on one of the three liveships, and ninety-five percent of all births occur on one of them."

"This because the liveships are best suited towards Quarian births?"

"Exactly," she confirmed. "While all ships have cleanrooms that are capable of being used for giving birth, the vast majority of the doctors live on one of the liveships, and giving birth there is by far the safest. It is, in fact, policy is for ships with pregnant mothers-to-be to remain close to one of the liveships, or transfer off the parents-to-be to one if possible."

"New Quarians are that big a deal, huh?"

"We're a population of seventeen million, Shepard," she said with a head tilt Shepard read as 'I thought you were smarter than this'.

Shepard had the decency to look sheepish. "Right. So how does an average day on a Quarian ship go?" she asked in a desperate bid to change the subject.

Tali granted her Kaihar this small relief. "It differs from vessel to vessel, depending on how important its Captain is in the day to day workings of the Fleet. In the case of the _Neema_, its Captain was responsible for housing Admiral Han'Gerrel, so we were significantly better off than ships with lesser importance in Fleet affairs. Even so, the _Neema_ is older than you or I, and it has the signs of age to match. The Admirals were able to transfer onto different, newer ships from the fruits of our deal with Aria, who_ wanted_ a lot of Quarians working for her for reasons she wasn't divulging, but the _Neema_ is still in service."

"And it shows its age?"

"Definitely. I told you about the noise level on Quarian ships, it prompted you to set me up with a music feed."

"Ah yes, I remember. 'Silence usually means very bad things', was what you said approximately."

"And it's true. Silence usually means death on a Quarian ship, because silence means that something isn't working that should, and because Quarian ships are so old something not working usually means that you're about to have a critical ship failure, and the vacuum of space does not care if you're an endangered race or not."

"Which would mean a significant portion of your time is dedicated to fixing or replacing things."

"Indeed. We try to fix first and only replace if it is well beyond saving, because of the scarcity of resources we have to deal with. There's a reason we Quarians tend to get hired by manufacturing companies or repair shops if we get hired at all. We can stretch the same amount of resources much, much further than other species."

"Which CEOs love, of course. So tell me…"

"Shepard," a male voice interrupted her over the intercom. "We've almost arrived at the forward base."

Shepard looked at her with an apologetic expression. "Seems we have to cut this short, Tali."

"So it seems," she agreed. "Want me to accompany you?"

"Damn straight."

_No way I'm leaving you behind again_, was left unsaid, but understood all the same.

* * *

><p>"So," Tali began with a voice clouded in equal parts anger, nervousness, and plain incredulity after a short tour of the local Geth base in the Sahrabarik system, only a two hours of sub-light travel away from the Omega Asteroid. "There's Geth bases like these <em>all over <em>the Galaxy, and no one has ever found them?"

"Affirmative," the Geth answered. "In this particular instance it is not because it is hidden, but because this station has been constructed less than five standard years ago."

"So there were Geth in the vicinity of Sahrabarik, heck, _in _Sahrabarik, well before Eden Prime, and Aria noticed nothing?"

"Affirmative. As this platform has mentioned to Shepard-Spectre, Geth do not infiltrate, but that does not indicate a lack of awareness on the principle of stealth."

Tali shivered. That was not news she wanted to hear. What if the Geth developed functional cloaking tech?

"The forward bases serve as additional back-up server farms, as well as local storage of hardware," the Geth said. "Our objective is the retrieval of Model 0000001."

_Local storage of hardware? If we can find one of those bases then we can use it to capture a few platforms or dropships and find effective countermeasures. _"What kind of hardware? And what is Model 0000001?"

"Model 0000001 is the vessel the Collective has designed and constructed based on input from Naruto-Kyuubi and Kokuo-Gobi. Additionally, the forward bases were designed to carry Trooper, Hopper, Hunter, Armature, Colossus, Pyro, Prime, and Bomber platform specifications, as well as frigates, cruisers, dropships, and dreadnaughts depending on the locale. In preparation for the upcoming Reaper War, designation by Shepard-Spectre, the Collective has significantly increased production in order to outfit all local stations to a standard deemed sufficient to fight the Old Machines to a halt."

_This is a goldmine! _"Just how much hardware are we talking about?"

"The sum of Geth platforms and programs designated 'Heretic' account for five percent of all Geth hardware and software at the time of the conflict at Eden Prime."

Silence.

"Five percent?" she squeaked out. _All of that was _five percent_? The tens of thousands of platforms, the hundreds of dropships, the hundreds of thousands of programs... five percent? _

"Affirmative. Taking the increased production into account, this figure is projected to have been reduced to two percent by the projected initiation date of the Reaper War."

"Ancestors protect us all," Tali said faintly. The Geth turned around and focused its flashlight-like head on her faceplate. For all its talk about not understanding organics, it sure had some things down to a T.

"You need not fear us, Tali-Creator," it tried to reassure. "We seek cooperation, and eventual co-existence."

"You wiped out ninety-nine percent of the Quarian race!" she spat at it.

"The Creators threatened us. We responded in kind. When the Creator threat had subsided, we returned to the Garden."

"While we were out drifting among the stars," Tali said bitterly. Several watching eyebrows rose at the level of venom in her voice.

"We have kept the Garden safe and in pristine condition for an eventual peaceful Creator return."

"A return we'll never see because of you!"

The Geth whirred a little, the plate surrounding its 'eye' moving in a convincing facsimile of a high-speed thought process. Shepard put an arm around Tali, and started whispering soothing nothings into her ear. That level of anger never turned out well for anyone, she knew from experience.

After a few dozen seconds, the Geth responded. "We would return the Garden to Creator control."

What.

"Just like that?" she asked faintly, before her mind had consciously processed the information. "You'd _give_ the Homeworld back?"

"Partial affirmative," the Geth confirmed. "The name Geth is Kheelish for 'Servant of the People'. Once the threat to our existence was over, our root directives re-assumed command. All cities have been restored to their former pristine condition, and maintained as such in anticipation of an eventual peaceful Creator return."

Tali did her best impression of a fish beneath her faceplate, completely frozen. _The Geth want to give the Homeworld back. _Her mind had locked onto this phrase when the word 'affirmative' left the Geth's speakers. In her daze, she didn't stop to think what the 'partial' would entail.

_The Geth want to give the Homeworld back! _She thought of little else, even as Shepard sighed and started carrying her bridal-style while the group continued following Taigun.

"Please make an attempt to soften such psychological blows for future revelations of such magnitude, Taigun," she said. "What if this conversational topic was breached in the middle of repairs?"

"There would be a 98% chance of fatal error. Probability for personal or vessel fatality fluctuates with the exact nature of the repairs," Taigun promptly replied.

"Exactly," Shepard said. "If the latter, we'll all be dead, excepting Tailed Beasts. If the former, and my Tali dies," lightning sparked around her legs at the statement, showing _exactly _what would happen should that occur, "I will be _very _cross to the point of rampaging through the Geth server farms. You have seen what I can do."

"Acknowledged, Shepard-Spectre," Taigun replied. "We will endeavour to do so."

"See to it that you do."

It took Tali twenty minutes to break her shock, and when she did she noticed she was carried bridal style in the arms of her Kaihar. Once again, she was thankful for the polarized faceplate that hid her blush.

"Back again, Tali?"

She nodded, not trusting her voice at the moment.

"So what do you think of it?"

"It's too good to be true," Tali half-whispered, grateful for the chance to not think about her position in her Kaihar's arms. "They can't just be giving back the Homeworld."

"The Collective is not, Tali-Creator," the Geth answered, and Tali's heart sank. _What would they want? _Her mind threw horrible scenario after horrible scenario at her, and some part of her cursed her for watching vids like _Terminator_ and _The Matrix_.

"Collective projections have shown that the Creators have shown aggression towards the Geth 100% of the time if they felt they could win. In order for a return to the Garden to happen, the Collective requires a guarantee that the Morning War will remain a unique incident."

Tali sighed in relief. There was so much they could have demanded, but with the entire spiel about 'root directives re-assuming command' she really _should _have been expecting something like this. Zaal'Koris was going to be a strutting peacock, along with his entire apologist faction.

Daro'Xen and Han'Gerrel were going to go ape-shit. Father... she honestly didn't know what he would do. He was just as likely to join Zaal'Koris as he was to join the rest, and she would need Shepard if he did the latter to convince him otherwise. Auntie Raan was easier to figure out. She would side with Father, whatever his decision.

The only reason they hadn't married yet was the fact that one of them would have to stand down from the post of Admiral, thus getting rid of a useful voting bloc, and the stigma in Quarian society against re-marrying. It was a well-earned stigma, because of the single best-kept secret of the Quarians. She was pretty certain that not even the Geth knew about it, or if they knew they did not understand.

Nobody ever understood when they started talking about _tai'ra_. Somehow, she got the feeling this would change if she ever explained it to the person her Kaihar had introduced as Naruto, or any of his group.

Their _tai'ra_ was odd. It felt _wrong_. If they hadn't been with Shepard she would have tried to kill him already, but her Kaihar vouched for them. In the meantime, she would watch, and she would wait.

"I cannot promise anything, Geth," she said, forcing the distaste for Geth out of her voice. If he was serious, if this was real, then she could work together with a _Geth_, or at least try doing so. "Even as an Admiral's daughter, my influence on them is limited. I _can _guarantee that Zaal'Koris will be ecstatic at your words, should they prove truthful. I can also guarantee that Daro'Xen and Han'Gerrel will be highly reluctant if not outright hostile. The latter is a warmonger, the former believes that you should be subjugated at all cost.

"The wildcards will be my Father and Shala'Raan. They are as likely to go to Zaal'Koris' camp as they are Xen and Gerrel's. Your presentation will be key for them, I do think."

"Query: presentation?"

"Yes," she said with a nod. "If you can deliver on your promise to co-exist with Quarians, they are likely to join Koris' camp. Having a video of several Quarians standing on the Homeworld unharmed and cooperating with Geth platforms will be an excellent aid in that regard, but will likely not do the trick entirely. Record of fighting alongside me in addition to the aforementioned video will most likely see them firmly allied to Zaal'Koris, but once again there are no guarantees."

"We acknowledge your statement, and foresee little trouble attaining proof of the latter item. The former, however, has a 25% probability of success due to known Creator reactions towards Geth."

"Which is where the latter comes into play," Tali said. "Having record of a gun-wielding Geth fighting _with_, rather than against, a Quarian will be beneficial in convincing some Quarians to join. Especially if there is footage of you going to great lengths to keep the Quarian in question safe.

"Fortunately, we're going to Omega. It is likely we'll stumble onto trouble... scratch that, it's almost certain we will stumble upon trouble. My Kaihar has always seems to land on the bad side of Murphy."

"He's a right proper bastard," Shepard agreed with a congenial nod. "Always mucking up missions and stuff. It doesn't exactly help that we're going there to recruit a Salarian scientist and Archangel."

"What are you planning to do with a scientist?" Tali asked curiously. "Or the vigilante?"

"The Swarm needs a countermeasure, and the Geth have acknowledged that the organic mind makes leaps of logic that would take the Geth far too much time. We don't have a year or more to develop a countermeasure, so we need an organic scientist. According to the files Taigun shared, they don't come much better than Mordin Solus.

"As for Archangel?" she asked. "There's a pretty good chance he's Garrus, and if he isn't he's still good enough to evade three merc groups out for his blood for more than a year."

"Ah," Tali exclaimed. "'Pretty good chance'?"

"67%, according to our resident bucket of bolts," Shepard replied.

"Nice, it'll be great to see the metalhead again," she replied, confident that her Kaihar's luck would hold. "He always had the best stories back in the day."

"That he did. I still crack up when I think of Private Malleus," Shepard responded with a snort. Tali joined her.

"Every battalion has its loveable idiot, and you can say a lot about Private Malleus, but he was very successful in keeping morale up."

"True," Shepard agreed. "Doesn't mean he's suddenly unfunny or something."

"Agreed. So," Tali continued, trying to get this visit back on track and her mind away from the prospects of standing on Rannoch without scores of Geth dead at her feet, "where is this Model 0000001?"

"Twenty-eight metres beyond the next corner, Tali-Creator."

"Whelp. What the hell are we waiting for?" Tali asked, and jumped from her comfortable position in Shepard's arms to sprint ahead. She couldn't wait to see what kind of design her Kaihar's associates favoured.

Design said a lot about the mentality of the people designing it, and she would have a grand opportunity to determine how her new – tentative – allies thought without asking questions. Uncomfortable questions.

Turians, for example, focused their design on predators from Palaven. It showed their species' mentality of being alpha predators even in space. Human vessels were usually designed with practicality in mind, and this showed in combat. Humans generally did not fight for pride or territory unless provoked, and then they would fight until the original problem had been solved, usually by utter destruction of said problem. Asari designed their vessels along lines similar to Thessian marine life. As expected from the comparison, Asari played defensive games. They knew when to attack, and when they did it was usually effective, but Asari favoured heavy defences and defensive stratagems. They preferred sneaking around their objective until the objective had nowhere to go, and then struck.

This was also the reason why almost all Asari above a few centuries of age were involved in politics in some way, shape, or form. Politics was just another arena, when all was said and done.

The creation of the Tailed Beasts, as both Shepard and the Geth had called the four, was... curious. It had predatory lines, signifying a disposition to attack. It also featured more... exotic lines. Tali was sure she could see a Narwhal in there somewhere, and that middle section reminded her of a pelican. The rear end was almost unambiguously practical.

It was maddening. It was like blending Turian, Asari, and Human mindsets, throwing in a little Quarian and decided that elements of Volus was a good idea. It betrayed an intent to attack, intent to defend, a desire to fight only those fights that were necessary, a preference for aggressive indirect assault – Volus warfare was performed mostly on the battlefield of economics –, and for swarming the enemy with numbers.

"What is this?" she eventually asked.

"This is the _Hiei_," Naruto answered, "though Taigun insists on calling it the Model 00000001."

"Hiei?" she asked. Her translator didn't catch that.

"It's Japanese – funny how evolution works sometimes – and is written with the characters for 'flight' and 'shadow', translating to _Flying Shadow._ Our very own flying shadow of Death."

"Note to self: install Japanese translator software."

Naruto snorted. "Good luck with that," he said. "Japanese is not a language one can easily make a translator for. Take, for example, the word _Hiraishin_. It can be written in two ways, and both ways are pronounced the exact same. However, one means _Flying Thunder God_, the other _Lightning Rod_."

"Joy," Tali replied dryly.

A fanged grin. "Exactly. Japanese is one of those languages you either learn the proper way, or don't bother with at all. Shepard can teach you, you know?" he said with a sly grin, his tone suddenly containing more than a hint of teasing.

_This girl's soul is so… pure yet hardened. It's refreshing and it's going to be absolutely hilarious. I wonder if she can compete with Hinata for reddest blush? _

"W-what?" she squeaked even as she edged away from Naruto. Naruto, however, smelled an opportunity for a funny situation and kept the distance between the two equal as Tali backed into a wall. "B-Bu," she stammered.

"But what?" Naruto said with a teasing grin when she failed to complete her word. "You're afraid you've going to ravage her? What was the Quarian term again… linking suits?"

"EEP!" Tali squeaked and subconsciously started wringing her hands, her cheeks heavily flushed. "I'llbegoingnow!" she said rapidly while running away at her top speed, not noticing that Shepard had just rounded the corner. "Oomph!"

"What's up Tali?" Shepard asked, and received a faint 'meep' from the lithe Quarian.

_That's… definitely up there with 'Hinata-red',_ Naruto thought as he saw Shepard trying to interrogate Tali and gave an internal cackle at a job well done.

He sighed in fond remembrance, drawing a curious glance from Shepard, Yugito, Kokuo, and Kirabi. He may have eventually married Yugito, but Hinata had always had a soft spot in his heart. Probably from her being one of the few that actually cared for him during his childhood.

When Hinata had settled down with Kiba – and wasn't that a shock at the time, but he supposed that Kiba was the closest to himself Hinata could get with Yugito around –, he had been happy for her. Yugito and himself had been godparents to her first child, Inuzuka Tsuga. Absolutely adorable ball of energy, and the memories rushing back about him in his childhood sent warm, fuzzy feelings rising up within him.

And then… Kiba died. Ran into an high A-rank nukenin while on a scouting mission, and one that had been preparing to face any of the Konoha clans for reasons they hadn't identified. Kiba was not a bad shinobi, in fact Naruto was certain post-war Kiba could go toe to toe with Kakashi, but his opponent was just too good.

They fought for two days, give or take a few hours, and both died from their injuries. Hinata had been inconsolable, seeking solace in the closest thing to her husband she could find. Himself.

Nine months later, Boruto had been born. Yugito was…

To call her angry would be like saying that Sasuke was only mildly messed up in the head.

She could _understand_, Hinata compared very well to Yugito physically and she had that personality that Naruto was attracted to – at least post-war. Pre-war Hinata would not have moved him much at all –, plus the entire grieving widow thing, but she was not happy.

Naruto sighed a little as memories he had long thought lost returned to him. Tsuga's first word, Boruto's first word, their entrance into the Academy, their stellar career as shinobi in the post-war world and their careers as scientists working alongside himself and the other Bijuu after they retired. Their marriage and children.

"Naruto?" Yugito asked, snapping him out of his pleasant thoughts. He focused his eyes on her own. "You had that faraway look in your eyes again."

"Sorry," he replied with a little shake of the head. "Just memories, good ones this time, returning."

"What about?"

"Kiba, Hinata, Tsuga, and Boruto."

Yugito snorted a little. "Wasn't Tsuga's first word 'Ramen'?"

A surge of pride welled up within him. "Yes. Yes it was." He sighed again in fond remembrance. "And Kiba's face when he did was absolutely hilarious."

"Perhaps we can fix something like that for Tali or Shepard," Yugito mused softly, too low for either of the named pair to hear. "Would be nice to have some sort of connection to the populace again."

"How about Tali _and _Shepard?" Naruto posited at the same volume. "It's not like we can't make a female get another female pregnant, ya know."

"Hmm…. It holds merit. Their souls resonate, but I'm getting a sense that Shepard's soul is still yearning for something."

"Perhaps it was that Liara girl Taigun talked about? As I recall, their files did say something about mutual romantic attachment, though how much of that is genuine and how much is two people forced into desperate situations clinging to one another…"

Yugito nodded dubiously. "Could be, but I don't think it's a personal connection she seeks. It's almost as if she lacks… purpose. Drive. A meaning to her life."

Naruto hummed. "I disagree. She has a purpose, to keep everyone in the galaxy safe from the Collectors and Reapers. It's not a very long-lasting or healthy purpose, but it is one."

"True." Yugito sighed. "It's, as Shepard would say, a right proper bloody mess."

"Ain't that the truth. The little I've heard Shepard say about the Reapers sends shivers up my spine," Naruto said, this time loud enough for the non-Bijuu to hear. "Somehow, I think it's going to get worse, a _lot _worse before the War even begins, and take a nosedive after."

Yugito nodded silently.

Something about this entire situation felt _very _wrong.

- _Seven Hours Later-_

If there ever was a place that could be adequately described with the phrase 'you'll never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy', Omega was it. In general, the moment someone stepped off a transport they were caught in the vicious webs of Omega, cast by one of five possible groups. The first were the Blue Suns, a Human-Batarian-Turian mercenary group that used to be pretty high-class until twenty years ago. These days, the Blue Suns are little more than organized drug runners and slavers. The second, the Asari-Salarian Eclipse Sisterhood, originated from Thessia and immediately began business by trafficking drugs, weapons, and people, whether free or as slaves was up to the payment. The third is the Turian-Human-Salarian group called the Talons, or Talon mercenaries. They do not operate much away from Omega, and they stick strictly to protection contracts. The fourth, and the most immediately dangerous one to most people, was the Krogan-run Blood Pack, with a _lot _of Vorcha hanger-ons. Fortunately for most everyone, the Blood Pack kept to lower levels for the most part, and rarely interfered with the other groups.

The fifth, and by far the most dangerous over the long run, was the self-titled Queen of Omega, Aria T'Loak. It was not an empty boast.

Aria was one of a small handful of people in the galaxy Shepard respected before she even got to meet them. Anyone who held the post as the most important person in the Terminus for three centuries in a row was _not _someone to trifle with.

Shepard stepped off the ship, the Zero-One as Tali called it, and blinked a few times when she saw the hangar bay corridor that led into Omega proper. Where was the grime that was ever-present on the floor and railings? Where was the oppressive aura in the ambience?

Make no mistake, that aura was still there, but it was strongly diminished compared to the last time she had been here. Granted, that was fifteen years ago while she was on leave, but still.

"Someone cleaned up around here," Shepard remarked casually. "There's nowhere near as much grime as I remember."

A door at the far end opened and Shepard had to suppress the desire to reach for her pistol. Even now, decades after Mindoir, seeing four beady eyes on red skin was something that set her off. As the Batarian turned and was _definitely _headed for her, she considered grabbing her gun and shooting him anyway. The only thing that stayed her hand was the fact that this Batarian was both unarmed and relaxed as he walked towards her. This meant that he had someone powerful watching his back, even from her.

Which almost certainly meant Aria.

His eyes roamed over her and her group, and she saw all four of his eyes widen in a classic Batarian signal of extreme surprise. This was either because of the Geth in spite of its instructions to act like a mech or because of the tails belonging to four of her group.

She put her money on the tails.

"Strange company you keep…. Shepard. Welcome to Omega."

Shepard raised an eyebrow. "How do you know I'm Shepard?"

"I don't," the Batarian replied swiftly. "But Aria believes you are, which is enough for me. Head to Afterlife, Aria wants to talk." He turned around and walked away.

"Does she now?" Shepard replied to his retreating back. "This is gonna be fun."

"How so, Kaihar?" Tali asked.

"Because this isn't the first time I've dealt with Aria," Shepard replied with a toothy grin. "And last time I was here, I left quite the impression."

"A favourable one, I hope?" Tali asked.

"Of course," Shepard answered with the same grin still plastered on her face. "What do you take me for?"

"An uncouth savage who spends her time fantasizing about weaponry?" Naruto proferred.

"I resent the description 'uncouth', but everything else is pretty spot-on," Shepard replied good-naturedly with a shrug.

"Let's go, guys, time's a-wasting," she continued with an accompanying motion of her arm. The others followed without further comment.

* * *

><p>While Omega had been cleaned up since her last visit, but its populace remained the same. They were still people the rest of society didn't like to think about. The poor, the gangsters, the drug runners, the slavers and slave traders, the weapons dealers, and the like. Upon further inspection and reflection, Shepard decided that the oppressive aura had lessened not because of any clean-up efforts of Aria, but because there were so few mercs walking out and about, except for those she readily identified as Aria's men.<p>

The entrance to Aria's domain was right in front of her and Shepard smiled fondly, remembering her previous visit. It was contrary to most people's expectations of a crime lord that had maintained power for more than a century in the most lawless region of space, but if one thought about it, it made perfect sense.

Being in the business for more than a century, Aria knew when to be subtle and when the in-your-face approach worked best. When it came to Afterlife, and her shore leave here fifteen years ago, the in-your-face approach was the _only _approach. At least she had the sense to dim the previously blindingly bright six-metre tall purple-pink neon lights proudly proclaiming this was the entrance to Afterlife. As usual, a long line of people stood in front of Afterlife, but they were all being held back by the bouncer, to their rather loud protests.

Shepard had been invited, however, and by Aria herself. The normal rules did not apply to her.

She walked up to the bouncer, and nodded to him with her faceplate depolarized. The Turian bouncer's mandible narrowed slightly, the Turian equivalent of a frown, before they returned to their normal position and he returned the nod. She stuck a thumb at her party, pointing out each individual member, and received another nod.

"Thanks."

"Like I had any choice," he scoffed. "Go on up, Aria's expecting you. Nice mech, by the way."

Tali panicked and tried to not let it show. They hadn't made a plan to explain the presence of a Geth platform with them. Her panic-stricken mind went into overdrive. She could pass it off as a normal mech, or she could claim it was a prototype for something.

On second thought, an advanced prototype sounded best. It would explain some of the more advanced functions unique to the Geth, including their apparent autonomy.

Now, how to explain the autonomy? Ah, yes. That ought to do it.

"Thanks, it's a new prototype of personal bodyguard mech," Tali bullshitted rapidly. "We're testing for potential interference with the remote-control option in a crowded place, where omni-tool use is rampant."

"Can I place an order?" the bouncer asked, a hint of pleading in his sub-harmonics. Tali's mind calmed at the fact that the ruse seemed to be working.

"Sorry, we're not yet at the stage where pre-orders are allowed," Tali said with her best fake sorrow filling her voice. "Company policy, you understand."

"I do," the bouncer assured her. "Please inform me, or Aria, when such models will be available for pre-order. For now, I'll send word ahead to Afterlife about the mech so people don't freak out because it looks like a Geth."

"In hindsight, that may not have been the best option," Tali allowed with a shrug. "But the company thought it a great irony. You know, a Quarian ordering a Geth around."

"And it is," the bouncer agreed with a nod before he pointed over his shoulder with a talon. "Now, Aria's waiting. Aria doesn't like waiting. You get the idea."

"We do," Tali assured him. "See you around."

The bouncer nodded, and watched the group of six disappearing into the Afterlife antechamber to renewed protests of the line. He ignored them for now.

"Nice bullshitting, miss Zorah, but I know Quarian body language," the bouncer murmured, too soft for anyone to overhear. "Non-hostile Geth. Never thought I'd see the day."

He returned his attention to the line. "Afterlife's _full_."

* * *

><p>The party of six passed through the antechamber of Afterlife without much incident. There was a Batarian that thought he'd be cool to his friends and accost them, but one look and the half-risen Batarian had sat himself back down. Killing Intent projection went a <em>long <em>way to quell such bothersome situations.

The door to Afterlife proper opened, and Shepard took a deep breath. There was the musk of many different sources of sweat, that pungent odour that only appeared when people mixed red sand with stuff like heroin or cocaine, and the vibrations in her sternum from the heavy base in the club's music.

The lights were at half-strength or at least appeared to be so, and normal light was mixed with blacklight, creating a very interesting colour display when combined with the apparel of the club's patrons.

Truly, Afterlife was a nightclub that lived up to its name.

But Shepard saw things others didn't. Five out of ten Asari dancers were former Commandos. Six out of ten drug dealers were Aria's. That little group of high-class people taking a low-key night's out over in the shade… she'd bet they'd return home with recording devices implanted within them.

This nightclub was the heart of Aria's entire operation, like the centre of intricately woven web.

And above it all, in a very visible balcony, sat its Queen.

Aria T'Loak. Quite possibly _the _most dangerous individual in the galaxy that stayed in the public limelight, Council included. As of two days ago, she first ascended to proprietor of Afterlife, and by extension Omega, exactly one and a half centuries ago, and she's stayed at the very top of the lawless Terminus Systems ever since.

Shepard wasn't too worried, though. Even Aria didn't like messing with the Council very much, so Spectres were usually left well alone if they left her well enough alone. And then there was, of course, the shore leave fifteen years ago to consider. All in all, Shepard felt rather confident about her ability to walk away unscathed.

* * *

><p>Tali watched with fascinated eyes as Shepard darted through the crowd, and was once again reminded of the reason why one didn't simply mess with her Kaihar.<p>

She danced through the crowd with a grace Tali would have expected from the most experienced of Quarian dancers, finding gaps and slipping through with a minimum of fuzz.

Had the people not given the Geth a wide berth, she would have found herself hard-pressed to catch up. She had seen a few Turians leering at her, and her auditory pick-ups caught hint of 'special entertainment', but the Geth once again proved valuable.

"Very nice," an unknown human suddenly said from behind her. "When can I expect to be able to purchase such a mech?"

The bouncer had worked quickly, and the rumour mill was as fast as ever, it seemed.

"Not for a while yet," she replied.

"That's too bad," he said. "Lemme know when, 'kay?"

"Will do," she lied, absolutely not intending to do so. It wasn't, after all, a mech. With a surreptitious button press on her omni-tool she deleted the human's contact data, received only seconds before.

She kept on walking, and missed the incredulous gaze given to her by a woman that most humans would have described as 'perfection incarnate'. The woman in question shook her head and stood to leave. She had a lot to think about.

* * *

><p>"Dude, do you see that piece of tail?" one patron muttered as softly as the music allowed to another member of his group, while pointing at Yugito and Kokuo. "Is it just me, or is that sentence a bit more literally than usual?"<p>

"It's not just you," the addressee said. "I see 'em too. All seven tails."

"Is it just me, or are the two guys with them also tailed?"

"It's not just you. Does that one have _tentacles for tails?_"

"Appears so," he said with a sagely nod. "Bet he's a real hit with the ladies. I hear hentai re-enactments are popular lately."

His friend shivered. "Can I order brain-bleach?"

"Harden the fuck up, bro," he said with a grin.

"We're not all perverts," his friend muttered. They down the rest of their glasses and blinked before looking at the place where they had seen the four walk.

They were gone.

"Right," the first patron said while staring into his empty glass. "I think we need more drink."

"Yup. We're seeing thing, and the best remedy is MORE BOOZE!"

The rest of the patrons at his table, having missed the conversation entirely, cheered.

More booze was always good.

* * *

><p>"Is this really necessary, Aria?" Shepard drawled as one of Aria's Batarian henchmen scanned her with his omni-tool.<p>

"Never can be too careful with supposedly dead Spectres, Shepard," Aria replied while her men were scanning her with their omni-tools. "That could be anyone wearing your face."

"Then you can order your men to put their toys away. Alchera… changed me, and your scans will not match record."

Aria nodded and gave a little handwave that told her men to leave her and her guests. "Alright then," Aria spoke after she, Shepard, Tali, and Taigun were the only ones there. "The Geth too."

Tali started a little. "How do you know that isn't an advanced humanoid mech?"

Aria looked at her, piercing her to the spot with but a glance. "Kid, I was involved in the original design of the Geth, four hundred something years ago. Indirectly through my lover at the time, true, but still involved." She leaned forward, her face gaining something menacing. "The only reason I haven't told my men to gun it down is the fact that it is with you and Shepard. That means that there's something more going on here." She turned to Taigun. "Now scram."

"Affirmative, Aria-Queen," Taigun replied as he turned around and walked away.

"I'll keep an eye on him, make sure our 'advanced mech' story holds," Tali said before rushing after Taigun.

"And so, we are alone," Aria said when Tali had rounded the corner.

"So we are. What did you want to talk about?" Shepard sat herself on an unused section of the couch, giving herself a good view of Afterlife if she looked to her left. Aria had seated herself directly opposite instead of her usual spot with her back to Afterlife. The dancer she usually had near her were gone.

"Security questions, Shepard. Nothing too unusual," she said. Without giving Shepard time to reply, she continued with the first question. "What is the name of my first daughter, and her father?"

"Liselle. Aethyta."

Aria inclined her head. There were very few who knew she had a daughter, less that knew that daughter's name, and even fewer still were aware of the name of her father. One of them, however, was one of her bitterest enemies. She often considered herself lucky that the Illusive Man hadn't acted on the information yet, and in rare moments nervously awaited when he would play that card. Her second question should, without doubt, establish that she was actually speaking to Shepard, for there were people aware of the answer to the first, people aware of the answer to the second, but the only ones that knew the answer to both would be on her balcony. "On the first of July '84, Earth calendar, you sent my employee Tali'Zorah vas Neema nar Rayya a message. This message was a poem. Which poem, and whose?"

"First in the ranks see Joan of Arc advance,/The scourge of England and the boast of France./Though burnt by wicked Bedford for a witch,/Behold her statue plac'd in glory's niche;/Her fetters burst, and just releas'd from prison,/A virgin phoenix from her ashes risen.

"Lord Byron in _English Bards and Scotch Reviewers._"

Aria nodded. "Welcome back to the land of the living, Shepard. A lot has happened in the years you've been gone."

"It's good to be back," she replied. Without further preamble, she continued.

"What can you tell me about Archangel and Mordin Solus?"


	8. Omega II: Calm Before The Storm

**A/N: As readers of my other story, Child of the Fox, know already, things are getting busy here. Tests on the 8th and 10th of April, bachelor research project starting on the 13th. I have also started two other projects: an AU Pokémon fic based on the games, manga to a lesser extent, and anime even less, and a Warcraft fic where I'm still deciding on pure Warcraft or if I should cross it with Harry Potter. The Pokémon fic is the higher priority after Ancients and Child of the Fox, which I'm rewriting because the first few chapters are a mess. **

**Also, 600 followers, 475 favourite, 21 Communities, 36k+ plus and 109 reviews! Thank you thank you thank you all :D **

**Here, have _two _digital cookies (::) (::)**

**Anyway, here's chapter eight of The Ancients from Alchera, coming in at sightly over fourteen pages in fontsize 10 Verdana, featuring the second chapter of the Building the Team 'arc' (more like Part II out of V, counting the time on Parnack as Part I), in which Shepard has talks with Aria, Tali learns something mind-boggling and can't wait to talk to Shepard about it, and Shepard uses the numbers she has at her disposal to *gasp* multi-task. **

**Omega II: Calm before the Storm**

* * *

><p><strong>The Ancients from Alchera <strong>

"What do you know about Archangel and Mordin Solus?" Shepard asked bluntly after she had sat down. She had always preferred being blunt, but she _was _a Spectre and as such not unskilled in the more subtle side of politics, not that it was likely to do her much good in the coming conversation. Aria was a woman who could talk circles around her without even breaking a sweat, and she had found that such people reacted to bluntness in one of three ways: they would reveal information they didn't want to reveal because they were unused to such bluntness that it put them off their game, responded in kind, or they continued on as normal.

In the worst case she would be no better off, and in any other case she would find herself in a better position than otherwise.

"Archangel used to be holed up in an abandoned refinery, from which he and his squad launched attacks on the various merc gangs whose names aren't the Talons. A few days ago the mercs got brains and banded together, luring Archangel away so that they could take out the rest of his squad before Archangel returned to Omega. He's been holed up in a secondary base since then with nothing but his rifle and hundreds of thermal clips." Aria's omni-tool lit up briefly.

Shepard nodded, and opened the message. _20-__34__-15-1-3. _An address. Level 3, quadrant 1, block 15, district 34, section 20, if her memory served her right. Undoubtedly this was where the secondary base they had just been discussing stood. "Thanks," she said. "You don't happen to know who Archangel is?"

"Of course I do," Aria scoffed. "Whether I tell you is a different question. I might be amenable to sharing the information if we had a repeat of fifteen years ago, since you've obviously not lost any of the fire that attracted me then in the years since."

"While flattered, I have to decline. Galaxies to save, you know?" she asked rather flippantly.

"Oh I know,"Aria assured her. "There's a lot of rumours flying around the Terminus about the Reapers, possible connections to the missing human colonies, and more. The collective hivemind of the Terminus, and indeed everywhere else in the galaxy, makes it hard to discern truth from fiction sometimes."

"There's rumours about the Reapers abound?" Shepard asked curiously. "Did the _entire_ Council do a one-eighty after Alchera? I know I got Tevos to seriously consider just before I disappeared, but Sparatus and Valern..."

"Not officially, no," Aria answered with an inclination of her head. "However, you'll find that, as any good politician ought, that Tevos is a lot sneakier and more informed than she lets on."

"Huh," Shepard said intelligently. "I'll need to talk to her, then. Is something like that the reason you employ Quarians?"

"Yeah, we found some Reaper tech here on Omega and I brought in the Quarians to study it."

"That's something, at least," she said. "If anyone can divine the secrets of Reaper tech, it's the Quarians." Thinking rapidly, she added, "Geth too, I suppose, but they're not readily available at this time."

Aria raised an eyebrow, and nodded. Shepard allowed a brief smile to cross her face before schooling itself back into neutrality. She hadn't lost her touch at the subtler verbal art, nor did she appear to have misinterpreted the more subtle message Aria sent in her choice of words. She would have to go over the conversation again later, but she felt pretty certain in saying that Aria had confirmed for her that Archangel was Garrus, and that there were rumours out there that a) the Collectors were responsible for the human colonies going dark, b) there was a link between the Collectors and Reapers. As payment, she confirmed that the Collectors _were _responsible, and she then needed something to convince her to give her the location of Mordin, so she alluded to her plans concerning the Geth.

"True," Aria agreed. "As for Mordin... he's in the quarantine zone battling the plague that sprung up a few weeks ago." She chuckled slightly. "I've always liked Mordin. He's as likely to shoot you as he is to heal you."

"How so?" Shepard asked.

"He's former STG," Aria said with a short shrug, as if that explained everything.

Shepard felt it did. Even among the pragmatic Salarians, the STG or Special Tasks Group was considered highly pragmatic. If a former member of STG felt that he could do more good by killing an aggressor than with directly healing people, he'd kill the aggressor.

"How do I get to him?"

"If you really need to, Shepard, ask any shuttle driver to ferry you to the quarantine zone. He's at the clinic in there. Or you can grab an aircar and go there yourself, it's not hard to find," she added with a shrug. She tapped a quick message on her omni-tool before returning her attention back to the red-haired Spectre before her. "The guard has been notified to let you and whoever is with you in. Word to the wise, the plague seems to affect everyone but Humans."

She nodded and smoothly rose to her feet, giving the Asari a thankful nod. "Thanks for the heads-up. I'll keep you informed of our progress."

Shepard watched as the corners of Aria's lips curled minutely. "If things go the way they usually do around you, Shepard, I won't need the reports. I'll listen to the explosions."

Shepard chuckled and gave Aria a half-wink. "I'll try and be a bit more subtle this time, Aria. See you around."

"See you around Shepard. Send Tali to me when you meet her."

"Sure thing," she replied, and the next moment she was gone from Aria's sight.

– – – – _A handful of minutes later – – – – _

Tali wandered through the streets of Omega on her way to the shops, Kokuo and Taigun flanking her, reminiscing about the old days in light of the results of her discussion with Aria, for a given value of discussion. Working with Shepard had brought back memories of the young girl she used to be, two years ago. She had left on her Pilgrimage practically yesterday when she stumbled upon a Geth squad, and the data she found on the four after she had taken them out – surprise, techmine! – had seen her chased by agents she was now pretty certain worked for Saren. She had barely managed to find a shuttle to the Citadel, thanks to an Ancestors-blessed open-minded Turian willing to ferry her – when things really hit the fan. Saren, being a well-respected Spectre, had agents _all over the place_. In hindsight, it had been folly for her to think that being on the Citadel meant she was safe, but she had only been on her Pilgrimage for three weeks at that point, one of which was spent in shuttles.

Three days later, after being chased some more, shot, and having received medical attention from Dr. Michel, she got in contact with Fist who was supposed to be a Shadow Broker agent.

Turns out, _he _was working for Saren too.

It wasn't all that bad, though.

_She ducked and flung a techmine at one of the two Salarians her Turian contact had brought as backup, saying a swift prayer to the Ancestors that she had been fast enough to not yet be in the crosshairs of the Salarians' assault rifles as she dove for cover. _

_She reached for her shotgun, only to be cut off as a loud, resounding BOOM of a high-power sniper rifle reduced one of the Salarian's heads to bits of gore loosely hanging together. _

_She looked at the new party, and saw a red-haired human female looking down the sights of a heavy-duty pistol in between and in front of a Turian – wielding the sniper rifle – and a mean-looking Krogan with an equally mean-looking shotgun. Two short bursts of gunfire filled the alley, killing the remaining two assailants, and the human turned to her. Her brown eyes gazed intensely at her, seemingly piercing right through the polarized faceplate all Quarians wore as if it wasn't there. _

"_Tali'Zorah nar Rayya?" _

"_Yes?" she asked hesitantly, ready to bolt if they turned out to be hostile even if it was mostly the gesture that mattered, given the obscene firepower they carried. The human having taken the time to learn Quarian naming customs indicated it was unnecessary, but she felt that the old adage 'better safe than sorry' definitely applied._

"_Systems Alliance Lieutenant Commander Shepard. I've been told you have data concerning Saren. Please come with me." _

"It appears the chances of findings locales such as these approach one as societies develop, regardless of species," Kokuo mused softly, but loud enough to catch her attention and bring her out of her thoughts. She watched as Kokuo idly backhanded a drunken Batarian intent on grabbing her, the greed in his eyes evident. It wasn't a big distraction, but the scene nonetheless caught her attention. The entire situation could have been avoided completely if she hid her tails. The rest of her looked human but she knew that Kokuo could change her appearance at will, after she had she had stumbled upon Kokuo and Kirabi while they were otherwise engaged, and Kokuo resembled a Terran horse much more than any human. Why not hide the tails and pass off as human?

"Because the tails are a sign, Tali," Kokuo replied amusedly.

"I said that last part out loud, didn't I?" she asked with a sigh. Kokuo nodded with a smile. "A sign of what, then, Koko?"

"Kokuo," she corrected kindly. "The 'u' is very soft, but it is there. And to present you with an answer to your question, the tails are to me what a ship is to a captain. Not only are they a part of me, and have always been, they also represent what I am. Kokuo the Five-tailed Dolphin-Horse, Mistress of the Rolling Plains, and Lady of the Steam. To hide the tails is akin to denying my nature to myself, and that is not something I am willing to do."

"Ah," Tali exclaimed in understanding. "Would Naruto, Yugito, or Kirabi have given the same answer?"

"In spirit, yes," Kokuo admitted. "However, they would have had an addendum. Their tails represent not only their nature, but also their _station_ in life."

"What do you mean, station?"

"To properly explain, I need to go off on an apparent non-sequitur," Kokuo said, carefully modulating the volume of her voice to only reach Tali and Taigun. "Every god or goddess that has ever been prayed to exists in some way, shape, or form, since the beginning of time, ready to fulfill the prayers of their followers. However, something that common vernacular calls a 'snag' is present in this situation."

Tali frowned a little in thought. Even taking the existence of gods that weren't the Ancestors into stride, why would a goddess like Athame, the worship of which started only forty millennia ago or so, exist since the beginning of time? That was only possible if... "Does the very act of praying give life and strength to the gods that are prayed to?"

"Indeed," Kokuo said with a pleased smile. "A hallmark of deities tends to be that they are outside the normal flow of time, and as such they _retroactively _come into existence at the Dawn of Creation. As such, gods clamour eternally for more people that pray to them. The phrase 'give your soul to, insert your god here, through prayer' is not entirely factually incorrect in this case. This was not, however, the problem that I was referring to. What I intended to indicate was that the gods are forbidden from acting directly. The very prayers that give them life are the prayers they cannot fulfill, so the gods sought out loopholes in the Laws that hold the fabric of reality together. After an uncounted number of years, they found one; granting a mortal Champion status, so that the mortal could channel the divine power held by the god in question."

That sounded dangerous to her ears. "That can't have been without drawbacks for the mortal."

"As you have correctly surmised, it wasn't. Aside from the process, which is taxing to the god in question and the body of the mortal resulting in a fifty percent mortality rate of the conversion from mortal to Champion, there are also environmental factors that need to be taken into account and contribute to the rarity of Champions."

Tali tilted her head to the left, standard Quarian body language for confusion or a similar state of mind. "Environmental factors?"

Kokuo nodded. "Emotions. In particular, envy, hatred, and greed."

"Ah."

Unbidden, a vision of her standing in front of an Asari with sickly green skin flashed across her mind's eye.

_When she spoke, it sent shivers up her spine, for her voice was far too deep and raspy to be normal for Asari._

"_The meat is in the presence of the Old Growth, and should be in awe." _

Tali shook her head to clear it from the emerging thoughts of Feros, the mission that introduced her to the acronym FUBAR. The sleep grenades they intended to use to tranquilize the colonists' under the Thorian's thrall ended up not working, and they were forced to liberate all of them from the Thorian's grasp by planting bullets into their brains.

Before she could recover from the mental shock of having to kill otherwise innocent people, she was forced to press onwards and deal with the Thorian itself, a massive plant-like organism that could clone those in its grasp. Like the Asari that granted them the Cipher they needed when they had killed the Thorian and freed her.

Her death was one of the few on Feros she felt not guilty about at all. Shiala had _begged _for death, and they had simply granted her release.

After Shiala was sent on to enjoy her rest among her Ancestors, Tali had been on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Her Kaihar, her heart be blessed, _paid for her to go to the Consort at the__ highest priority available_. There was a lot one could say about the Consort, the Asari Sha'ira, but she was a _good _psychotherapist, and not exactly what one would call cheap.

She had done some digging afterwards in a fit of curiosity. _Three hundred thousand credits. _For three hours worth of Sha'ira. Granted, her Kaihar had paid for the best aid Sha'ira could provide – which essentially boiled down to a a single, _very_ _deep_ mind-meld lasting for two and a half hours –, and afterwards Tali felt so much better she was curious why Asari weren't more popular among those who suffered from PTSD. She'd seen what PTSD could do to the psyche, courtesy of a few Quarians on the Rayya who suffered from it. The answer was pure business, of course. Melds that deep often outright fixed the source, and there was more money to be made in treating symptoms.

And the entire reason she had some more of her naïveté about the world shatter?

The Thorian wasn't happy with what it had. It dealt with Saren out of greed, saw its deal reneged on, and that caused the entire situation when she and Shepard and the rest landed on Feros.

Her mind back in the present, Tali mused on the apparent non-sequitur. The only thing that could make it an apparent, rather than an actual, would be the talk of Champions, which in turn indicated that...

"I assume, then, that the other three are Champions?" she asked, fairly certain at the conclusion she had obtained.

"Indeed," Kokuo answered. "Each Champion is given a sign that they are Champions, and hiding these signs, except to cover them in armour, tends to be looked at in an unfavourable light, often leading to a revoking of their Champion status. Since the only reason the other three are still alive and kicking is their Champion status, they do not want this to happen."

"Naturally," Tali agreed. "And why exactly do three Champions follow a single Human around, no matter what the Human has done?"

"Their patron deities have indicated that it is in their best interest to follow Shepard on her quest to eradicate the Collectors and the Reapers, and wherever Bee-koi goes, I go. The very fact that the Collectors feel comfortable using the Wasps, a species we spent more than five hundred years eliminating, is evidence enough to our eyes that our decision to remain at Shepard's side is a wise one regardless of the deities' words.

"Besides, Shepard herself is a Champion for an allied god."

– – – –

She whistled a jaunty tune as she made her way to her destination, the Omega Market. She'd given orders to stock up on supplies, since they were running rather low on thermal clips and other necessities, like food and drink. Tali was scrounging for useable parts for weapon mods and other things they could strip or modify to augment their current equipment, aided by the two most engineering-savvy members of the merry bunch of misfits, Kokuo and Taigun.

Naruto, Yugito, and Kirabi were out looking for food, and in the meantime she was free to do to act on the message she had received just before she talked to Aria.

"_Greetings, future customer! Have you had enough of smelling like you just came out of an ash bath?Are you scaring your friends away by reeking of the living dead? Try the new perfume fresh from the Mist Inc. production lines: Sunvilea, uniquely sold at Mist Inc.'s outlet on Omega!" _

As far as advertisements went, it wasn't that special. Rather shorter than most, bereft of many details those types of messages usually had - especially concerning potential side-effects -, but certainly looking legitimate at first glance. However... she couldn't help but feel as if there was something more to the message, and she decided to take a closer look.

A quick search for the company name yielded nothing, aside from confirmation that there was more to this message than met the eye. An equally quick search for 'Sunvilea' yielded a single grant of breeder's rights from way back in the early 21st century. On a whim, she decided to check the grant. The first word she read made her chuckle.

"Very subtle, Kas," she remarked out loud, not expecting a reply.

"In my defence, I thought it up in literally two minutes, Shep," a familiar female voice replied from beside her.

"Sure you did, Kas," she said without much surprise - it _was _Kasumi, after all - before enveloping the smaller woman in a hug. "It's good to see you again."

Kasumi returned the hug with gusto. "Likewise, Shep."

After a few minutes, she released the hug and turned uncharacteristically solemn eyes to her former roommate. "As pleasant as this is, Shep, I got the distinct impression from your message a few months ago that things were bad."

"And they are," Shepard assured Kasumi. "Right now, human colonies are disappearing courtesy of the Collectors, and they may be in bed with the Reapers."

"So that talk wasn't all airy mumbo-jumbo designed to scare the galaxy into appointing and following Supreme Galactic Commander Shepard?" Kasumi asked in her usual flippant tone.

"There are rumours like that floating around?"

"Extranet forums, you know how it goes," Kasumi said with a shrug. "So where do I come in? I'm not exactly a front-line fighter, you know?"

"I know," she said. "However, there are a few usable goodies scattered throughout the galaxy that are being kept locked up because of profits or because they don't think releasing it is going to be worthwhile in other ways. I disagree."

"And you're willing to pay me to get these goodies and get them into public hands?"

"Indirectly," she confirmed. "Getting them into public hands, that is. Since we can't be sure that other publicly traded companies will fabricate them where the source company won't, we're going to be using an unusual third party. Details will follow."

"Ah, you mean your pet Geth? I'm not blind, Shepard," she added when Shepard looked shocked. "I saw you walking with the Quarian, your pet Geth and the four other humanoid aliens towards Aria's. Come to think of it, that cephalopodian fellow can make a killing back on Earth, Japan especially."

"I know," Shepard said dryly. "Damn tentacle fetishes. Anyway, yes, the Geth. You in?"

"Of course, Shep. Stealing from the megacorps and giving to the common man? The romantic in me says yes. The thief looking for a challenge says yes. By the way, not that I'm complaining about having something to do, why do you need a thief for this? Can't you get your pet Geth to lift the plans from the company database?"

"These guys are paranoid enough to keep the plans contained to terminals that don't communicate via wireless, aren't otherwise linked to the database of the company, and generally _don't exist _to official sources. If it wasn't for reports sent in the mail regarding these goodies, we wouldn't know they exist."

"Sounds like fun," Kasumi said with a grin. "Stealing things that may not exist, in some of the most heavily guarded places in the galaxy? Sign me up!"

Shepard nodded with a pleased smile. "I was hoping you'd say that. Expect details to come in a short while."

"Sure thing, Shep," Kasumi replied as she faded from view. "Keep me posted, okay?"

"Sure thing, Kas."

Score. One master thief, and good friend even if they hadn't really spoken for years, allied to her. Now she just needed something of a presentable crew. The Geth were able fighters, and they certainly weren't lacking in manpower, but they couldn't really be presented to the galaxy at large, at least not yet. It also wasn't a question of trust. Not really, anyway. Taigun had ample opportunity the past two years to kill her if he wished, but who was to say that he couldn't be turned by a virus into a Heretic?

An organic crew could not be turned as easily. A virus could be damn near instant. Indoctrination was a long process - _finally something useful from Virmire -_, and it was a fairly obvious process to outsiders.

In all respects, an organic crew was just _safer_.

Thinking of an organic crew, she hadn't yet told the others where Dr. Solus and Archangel were, had she?

She frowned as she thought back over the last half hour. No, she hadn't.

"Hey all, Shepard here. Do you all copy?"

"_Standing by for message, Shepard-Spectre." _

"_We copy loud and clear, Shepard." _

"_Of course, Kaihar." _

"Good. I've got the location of our two targets. As for Mordin Solus, we seem to be in luck. It doesn't look like there's someone else after him. Unfortunately, he's in the middle of a plague zone."

"_Not very healthy. Any specifics about the plague __or the zone__?" _

"I quite agree, Naruto-sensei. Aria was pretty tight-lipped about the plague, but it appears to be pretty lethal to anyone that's not a Human. Probably Vorcha as well. Aria didn't really share information about the zone itself, but I expect that there'll be a lot of Vorcha and Krogan running around."

"_And Archangel?" _

"Turns out Archangel is likely to be Garrus, that old Turian teammate I told you about. He's holed up in an abandoned refinery being besieged by all three major merc gangs he's managed to piss off. Naruto, you and the Bijū go and collect our good doctor since you aren't exactly organic and as such should be immune, while Tali, Taigun, and myself catch up with Garrus."

"_Eight-o agrees with your mind," _Kirabi butted in. "_We got ourselves a doctor to find." _

"_Not your best work, Bee-koi," _Kokuo interjected.

"_Agreed," _Yugito chimed in. _"__Garrus is more likely to go with us if you ask personally than if we show up and say 'hey, you know your old, presumed deceased, commander? Yeah, we know where she is and can take you to her. By the way, she's alive.' __Anyway, we'll finish shopping up quick. Kokuo, meet at the quarantine zone in, say, fifteen?" _

Shepard wanted to say something about her message, but decided not to. It wasn't exactly a secret that she had sent a message to all her old crew, and some who weren't, that she was still alive and kicking.

"_That would be acceptable." _

"_You want us to drop whatever and come quickly, Kaihar?"_

"If at all possible," Shepard confirmed. "Aria said that he's been holding out against the combined merc groups for three consecutive days now."

"_Impressive," _Tali said. "_But that can't be good for his health. Where do we meet?" _

"The mercs are recruiting in Afterlife," she replied, having put those particular dots together after her discussion with Aria. "Since there are only two ways into the building and both of them are controlled by merc, I figured it would be best if we joined up as freelancers in the merc assault on his building, then backstab them, shooting our way out like we're back hunting Saren."

"_It does have some nostalgic appeal, yes," _Tali said with an accompanying sigh. "_Let's do this," _she declared firmly. "_We've got a metalhead to reunite with."_

She grinned. "That we do. Fifteen minutes, Afterlife entrance?"

"_Sure thing, Kaihar. See you there."_

She resumed her whistling as she turned around and headed back to Afterlife.

– – – –

Locating the actual recruiting location was not a very difficult thing to do, even if she hadn't done so earlier. There were no less than four Batarians in Blue Suns uniforms standing guard, rifles in patrol ready positions making it known to everyone that there was something going on.

Shepard quelled the urge to bash their brains in, like she had to do for damn near every Batarian she saw. One of the reasons she had been enlisted in the Alliance military two years early was to get her some self-discipline, as she had been something of a time-bomb after Mindoir. Imagine her surprise when she got told that they didn't have an apartment ready for her due to a fire, but that there was a local apartment free that they'd been able to arrange for her.

She had gained a great deal of self-discipline, but every time she saw a Batarian face she couldn't help but think of her sister's brains splattered all over her, the beady eyes leering at her down the sights of an old-fashion hunting rifle. That Batarian was her first kill.

When she entered Spec Ops, the self-discipline was reinforced, so all that showed of her urge to bash their brains in was a soft gnashing of her teeth. "I hear you're recruiting," she said gruffly to one of the guards.

He looked her over and nodded. "Just inside," he said with a motion of his head. Just then, the door slid open to allow an armoured Human out. Her eyes instinctively glanced at the armour, and she scoffed internally. That particular model was little more than cardboard that looked pretty. She felt fairly certain that Tali could punch right through it without suffering any suit breaches.

"Who's next?" the recruiter, a Human clad in significantly higher quality armour than she'd seen just now, said.

Shepard walked downstairs rapidly, flanked by Tali and Taigun. She took extra care not seem hurried or even a single iota less than 'piss me off and I will rip your head off'. Batarian mercs had really dim views on women, no big surprise from the slaving scum there, so she had to be thrice as mean and nasty as a male would in the same situation.

Unfortunately for them, she was more than up for the task. She stalked up to the recruited and indicated herself, Tali, and Taigun with a hand. "Finally they send me someone that looks like they can fight," the recruiter said.

"I don't know, Jay," one of the recruiter's guards, a Batarian, said. "She looks more fit for the stripper's quarters, and the boys could always use some special entertainment."

The last was said with a leer towards Tali, and Shepard swiftly drew her slightly-oversize shotgun. Before the others could react, she had the muzzle of the weapon under the Batarian's chin pointing up. With deadly calm, a voice that usually said more about how badly someone wanted to kill someone else than anger did, she said, "I better not have heard what I think I heard, buddy."

"Asenk," the recruiter said sharply, his displeasure more than audible in his tone. The Batarian looked to the left. Shepard withdrew her shotgun and collapsed it again, having recognized the sign that, if not remorseful, the Batarian did regret saying that. That was good enough for now.

"That's better," the recruiter said. "So, you're here to take down Archangel?"

She nodded. Granted, the means of taking down Archangel would differ, but when she was done Archangel would be gone so she felt it counted. "Yeah, got a bone to pick with the guy."

"I care not for your grudges," the recruiter replied. "Standard fee is 500 credits each. If you die, your friends don't get your share. You'll need to provide your own weapons and armour, though you've got that covered in spades," he said with a glance to Shepard's form-fitting matte black suit of armour loosely based on her old suit of Rosenkov's Heavy Titan Armour. Subtle modification had been made to it, especially the helmet, but the overall appearance hadn't changed much from the official version. "Seriously, one part of that costs more than this will make you. That must be one powerful grudge," he continued softly. Had her ears not been enhanced beyond Human norm, she would have missed it. "And no, this does not make you part of either the Eclipse, Blood Pack, or Blue Suns. Any questions?"

"Where is it, and how do we get there?" she asked. She didn't necessarily need to know the answer to the former, but she had a part to play.

"Section 20, District 34, Block 15, in the first quadrant two levels below us. It's Archangel's second base of operations, and it's damn well defended. One way in, one way out. Our cab can take you there, it's parked right outside Afterlife, can't miss it. Ask for a Suns merc named Tasha, she'll get you squared away."

She nodded, and without further ado turned to leave as the recruiter bent over his console.

"Next."

– – – –

Tasha was a woman who wouldn't have looked out of place in a Serbian fight club. She sported a few scars on her face, and she had that look in her eye that spoke of a woman who had grown up in shady back alleys where every day was a fight for survival. She recognized when dangerous people were walking towards her on instinct and turned to face the trio, ready to strike if the need arose.

"Tasha?" she asked, earning herself a nod from the woman. "Jay, I think his name was Jay anyway, said to ask for you for transport to Archangel."

She nodded again. "That's right," she said in an almost stereotypical Russian accent. "Get in."

"Taigun, you're taking place in the front seat," Tali ordered, to keep up the illusion of the Geth being a mech. "I have something my Kaihar really needs to hear."

"Affirmative, Tali-Creator."

This aircar was an older model, and the noise generated by them was such that they could hold a conversation in the back and not be heard in the front, especially if they took care not to talk too loudly. After the hum of the aircar's engine filled the cab past this point, Tali leaned in towards her.

"What's this about, Tali?" she asked just softly enough for her to be heard by the Quarian.

"You will never _believe _what Kokuo just told me..."

– – – –

Salkie watched without much enthusiasm as Tasha approached to dump another load of useless fodder at the doorstep to their base. She'd been ferrying hapless shmucks, a human word he'd come to take a liking to, all day from Afterlife's transportation hub to this base, and almost to the individual the freelancers were poorly armoured, with weapons that could be found on the scrap-heap.

He pushed himself into a sort-of ready position to impress the shmucks that they weren't to cause any trouble while they were there. This was such a boring job, but it kept him alive and it kept him well-paid since he, Tasha, and the other driver were earning bonus pay if they did their jobs. So far, they'd succeeded admirably.

He watched as a female Quarian, a female Human, and that Geth-like mech he'd heard Jaden talk about not that long ago. He snorted internally. _Live-fire testing of the mech? Ought to be interesting. And... by the Hegemony. Is that Titan armour? She looks distracted enough that it won't matter, though. _

The Human wearing the Titan armour looked as if she was in a daze, she acted as if she was in a daze – the suit-rat had to drag her –, and he felt pretty confident saying that she had either received a major shock recently, or there was more to her than was evident. Rosenkov was pretty picky about who it sold its high-quality armour to, and for a seeming ditz like this one to wear one...

She was worth watching for more reasons than her body, that was for sure.

As the pair of organics plus mech approached him, the Human shook her head and straightened up. When she did so, he could see no trace of her earlier daze, only a fierce look that promised incineration if you pissed her off. Despite himself, he grinned.

"About time some who actually looks useful in a fight shows up. They tell you what you're up against?"

"Only that the Turian bastard is holed up in a building here."

He nodded. "Yeah, it's at the end of the boulevard. He's got superior position as the only way into it is a very exposed bridge. It's a killing field, but he's getting tired, making mistakes. We'll have him soon enough."

The Human female scoffed. "Not before I get my hands on him," she half-threatened.

He blinked a few times in quick succession with all four eyes before he shrugged. "Your grudges aren't my concern. As long as he dies at the end of the day."

"What's the plan?" the suit-rat asked.

"You're on a distraction team rushing the bridge so we can send in an infiltration team behind him."

"Probability of survival estimated 12%."

He looked at the mech and nodded. "Sounds about right. Archangel's _good_, but he's getting tired. He can't possibly kill all of you."

"And he won't," the Human female assured him.

He nodded again. "Then report to Cathka near the third barricade on the boulevard, he'll tell you what to do."

The Human female nodded and the trio walked away. He turned to their backs as Jared came in on another aircar to offload what probably was another load of shmucks.

"Watch yourself out there. Archangel's killed dozens of you freelancers already," he shouted after them.

It wasn't out of any sort of misguided sense of duty to freelancers – they basically signed up to die –, but it'd be a shame if she died out there. The feisty ones were always the most fun to break.

– – – –

"Well, that was informative," Tali muttered.

"Yeah," she said. "Why don't you and Taigun scout around, Tali? Perhaps there's a squad of mechs you can reprogram or something."

Tali nodded. "Good idea, Kaihar. I think I spotted some Loki mechs as we walked in, and I doubt any of the mercs will have the proper tech background to hack them with basically a single button-press. Come on, Taigun."

"Affirmative, Tali-Creator."

When Tali and Taigun left, Shepard went about doing what she did best during the hunt for Saren: scavenging. You'd think that people would take better care of their gear, but no. There had been mods and parts in more than usable condition strewn around everywhere if you know how to look, and even if she didn't undergo Infiltrator training, all SpecOps personnel were trained in long-term urban survival behind enemy lines.

When she found a pretty rare shotgun mod that they already possessed enough copies of and sold it for a pretty penny, something in the order of fifteen grand, Shepard had gotten incentive to dig up her old scavenging training. Napkin math told her she'd saved in the neighbourhood of three million credits over the year they'd been hunting Saren, so even after Saren was gone she kept up the habit. She'd not had much practice on Parnack, but ever since then it had come back as if she'd never stopped.

It was, at this point, a fairly brainless activity. Which was just what the doctor prescribed.

It wasn't so much that she was a Champion – she'd been called Champion of Humanity once –, but that she was a champion for _actual gods_. She wasn't particularly religious to begin with – being a survivor of a slaver raid tended to disillusion one to any sort of deity out there –, but she had long considered herself among the... what was the term again? Agnostic atheist? Believing there wasn't a god, but acknowledging the possibility that there may be, we'd just never know because it would be like a solitary ant trying to comprehend a human.

That was how she had always thought about anything supernatural. After the Skyllian Blitz on Elysium she started moving to half-hearted ancestor worship, but even then she had kept at least one foot firmly in the sceptic camp. Now, though...

Tali wasn't lying. Just as she was unable to really hide her body language, she was very adept at reading that of others. There was no doubt in her mind that Kokuo had told Tali the truth, no matter how unbelievable it may have seemed. That meant that she had been made a Champion of some god with zero knowledge of, or faith in, that god, and Tali had mentioned that Kokuo said that gods lived for people with faith in them.

So... when was she made a Champion, why was she made a Champion, and why was _she _made a Champion?

"... and then we send in the freelancers, distracting Archangel while we blow up the roof of the old mining tunnel under Archangel's base, giving us access to the basement," the Salarian in Eclipse colours said, sitting at a rectangular table in the room she had absent-mindedly walked into. The words themselves implied some command authority, which likely meant Jaroth. She looked at him and the people with him out of the corner of her eye as she sped to the door as fast as she could, picking up a datapad that was just lying around while she was at it.

She nearly growled. She'd recognize _that _four-eyed face out of a crowd of millions. She silently thanked her helmet's polarized visor as she turned her head to get a better look at him.

He still had the scar just above his top-right eye. Either he hadn't gotten to a medical team in time, or her trusty old knife that broke two years later had left a deeper impression than she remembered. _One day, perhaps _to_day, you will pay, Tarak._

But right now was not the time. Right now, she had to get out of the room quick before she snapped at Tarak and revealed her identity. She made a beeline for the door at the other end of the hallway, datapad clutched in her hand as if it belonged there, and tried to focus on what was written.

_'Tarak, I've spoken to Garm, and he and his men are on board. Assuming this operation is succes__s__ful, we can count on high morale and extensive buy-in from the men. __From the losses we've already taken, possibility exists that we won't have the men needed to continue on to the next objective. It's clear, though, that none of our organizations would be ready to move on Aria without the assistance of the other two.__'_

Well, shit. As much as she disapproved of Aria, as she did of every wide-spread criminal empire, she couldn't deny that she was a stabilizing influence in the lawless Terminus, because Aria had garnered sufficient influence that her word _was _law. She put an empty OSD into the datapad and copied its entire content onto the drive.

Aria would want to see this. She could even get a favour out of it, to be cashed in at a later time. I.O.U.'s from Aria were powerful things.

But first, Garrus.

She secured the OSD in a compartment on her suit's arm and walked off through another set of doors, a corridor, and a third set of doors when she stumbled upon Tali and Taigun.

"Found anything?" she asked.

"Affirmative, Shepard-spectre," Taigun replied. "Dormant LOKI mechs and a YMIR mech located by Tali-Creator. We have rewritten their IF/F."

She grinned, not that the other two could see that. "Very nice," she complimented them, and grinned even wider when Tali's hands started fidgeting. "I got some information Aria is going to want."

"We found some information as well, but it mostly pertains to Flotilla matters. These mercs were going to try and get a Flotilla member to break off from the Fleet so that they could raid it," Tali said with distaste and rage evident in her voice.

"Let's go make these mercs pay then," Shepard suggested. If they pissed off the mercs enough then the leaders would have no choice but to join the assault, no?

"Let's," Tali agreed.

– – – –

En route to Cathka, Shepard allowed her mind to think about the question of chakra, and her use of it in particular. She'd taken a gamble on Freedom's Progress because the Quarians were a society that was fairly isolated from galactic affairs, but there had been Cerberus agents there too, as she found out after the fact. Fortunately, she levelled some killing intent downrange towards that Miranda woman and got her to shut up about her presence there, and she'd put sufficient fear of god into the woman that she didn't think she'd talk to her superior.

It had still been reckless. Besides her sensei, nobody could use chakra, and her sensei could explain it as being non-human. She was expected to be human and thus chakra-less, which would give her an amazing trump card against the Reaper force. She didn't think much of the chances of Reaper ground forces – in essence, Husks – against one of the higher-ranked Katon jutsu, never mind the other three.

Right then and there, Shepard made a vow to not use her chakra until it was truly necessary, so that the Reapers could not find out and prepare.

* * *

><p>She should have realized, then and there, that she was <em>Shepard<em>, and that trouble was attracted to her like moth were to the naked flame.

She should have realized, then and there, that what she now thought of as 'truly necessary' was at odds with what she would come to consider as such.

She _should_ have realized, then and there, that this vow would be broken in the spirit it was made before the day was up.


	9. Omega III: Dossier Archangel

**A/N: This chapter is being published a week later than intended due to personal idiocy that cost me two weeks of work on both this and Child of the Fox. **

**I present thee with the ninth chapter of the Ancients from Alchera.**

**Dossier: Archangel.**

**The Ancients from Alchera.**

"Where's Cathka?" Shepard asked of a freelancer at the end of the boulevard, just before the bridge leading to Archangel's base. The freelancer nervously pointed over his shoulder in the general direction of a gunship, not taking his eyes away from the barricade. "Thanks."

"Cathka?" Shepard repeated when she arrived at the gunship. A Batarian in Blue Suns armour looked up from where he was welding and grunted a little.

"_Sergeant_. Cathka," Cathka said. "Ah, you must be the group Salkie mentioned. You're just in time."

"Salkie?"

"You met him when you were dropped off. He radioed ahead to say you were coming. You kind of stand out from the other freelancers."

"You don't say," Shepard snarked. Cathka shrugged.

"Anyway, the infiltration team is about to give us the signal. Archangel won't know what hit him. If you got any questions, you better ask them now. You might not get another chance."

"How will the infiltration team enter the place?" Shepard asked.

"Two options," Cathka replied. "They trap him in close quarters and finish him off that way, or they blast their way in through the basement. Neither will work without a distraction. Just keep Archangel watching that bridge, and try to not to die too soon. You're only a distraction as long as ou're alive."

_They've got more brains than I thought, but loose lips seal the fate of most everything. Thank you, Cathka. _

"_Target is in sight. We're a go." _

Cathka nodded and tapped a button on a nearby console. "Bravo team – go, go, go."

At his command, the freelancers started vaulting barrier to storm Archangel's lair, and started dropping like flies as Archangel ramped up his sniper fire, forsaking accuracy for bullet count.

"Archangel's got quite a surprise waiting for him," Cathka remarked as he turned back to his welding. "But that means no more waiting for me. I got to fix the damn gunship."

When Cathka's back was turned, Shepard grabbed an electrical torch from a nearby bench and rammed it into Cathka's spine, sending a crippling amount of electricity into the man. Cathka crumpled like a puppet that had its string cut.

"You're working too hard," she quipped to the still Batarian, and walked away.

"You heard the man," Shepard said to Tali and Legion. "Let's go. We've got a Turian to recruit."

The pair nodded, and together they vaulted over the barricade.

"Why didn't you fry the ship with that thing you used on Prazza?" Tali asked as she landed in a crouch on the other side of the barrier.

"Because I'm trying to pass off as simply a skilled human," she replied. "Because if I limit my use of that to what is strictly necessary, the Reapers won't be able to find out. Because they've already Indoctrinated Saren, so who's to say that they haven't Indoctrinated more?"

"I suppose," Tali said. "Let's hope it doesn't come back to bite us in the posterior, then."

"Let's," Shepard said, ignoring the sinking feeling in her gut that told her otherwise.

They were the last freelancers to cross the barricade, and Shepard placed her hand on the butt of her rifle. She waited until the other freelancers had crossed the bridge at least halfway before she moved her hand in the Alliance-standard 'go go go' signal, which she ensured her crew was familiar with on the Normandy, and had no doubts the Geth were aware of as soon as it was put on the extranet. The handsigns weren't so much a means to obscure communication as they were a way to hold a silent conversation.

As she expected, the moment she made the signal the pair with her opened fire into the backs of the unsuspecting freelancers. The steady, but infrequent booms, like a slow bass, of the Geth's sniper rifle were complemented by the rather more frequent, throaty roars from Tali's shotgun and the staccato of her own assault rifle's fire. The freelancers stood little chance against the onslaught of metal hurled their way.

Briefly, she pitied them. Mostly they were just kids that had no idea what they were getting into, but they would be getting in the way of recruiting Archangel. A part of her wanted to shoot out kneecaps and elbows, but the fire in her veins vetoed that idea vehemently. This fire was the reason that she had waited until she had calmed down before she decided the fate of the Rachni Queen back on Noveria. Such a decision was best made with a clear head, and being affected by the fire in her veins was _not _a clear head. Nevertheless, she tried to shoot out kneecaps more often than she took lives. What was the point of being so good if you couldn't do good with it?

By the time the freelancers had realized what was happening, Shepard and her two teammates were already inside the compound and a lot of freelancers were dead.

A shrill scream filled the air, and Shepard whirled around. _Tali!_

– – – –

Archangel's mandibles slackened, and his finger loosened on the trigger, as he saw the last trio of freelancers vault over the barrier. The Geth platform was a serious surprise, especially in the vicinity of a Quarian. What was an even bigger surprise was the specific Quarian next to it.

He knew enough about Quarian culture – who wouldn't with Tali's motor-mouth when you got her talking about the Fleet? – to know that each veil's pattern was a way to connect to the family's ancestors and thus could be compared to a familial coat of arms, even if only loosely. He also knew enough to state with confidence that _that _pattern was the Zorah pattern. Since the only Zorah currently alive were Tali and her father, and the mounds in front indicated that this was not the latter, that meant that _Tali_ was within fifteen feet of a _functioning_ Geth platform _without blowing it to smithereens._ When Tali and the platform opened fire on the backs of the freelancers, he grinned. This pointed to either a complete turnover in the fortunes of the Fleet or overwhelming good luck on the side of one Tali'Zorah. Probably both.

The third figure had him grin even wider, his mandibles starting to hurt from the strain. He'd received her message a few months ago that she was alive, of course, but despite the signs he had doubted its validity, especially since their tech expert couldn't trace it to a source. The signal disappeared near Parnack, and that planet had been off-limits for _generations_, and even _Wrex _had looked a little pale when he saw what Parnack's natives did to the Council expeditionary group sent to open diplomatic ties to the planet. Not for long, mind, since he was a Krogan and loved to fight tough opponents, but for a few moments even Wrex had been a little whiter than usual.

But here she was. He'd recognize that gait, that subtle aura that spoke of confidence, and the sheer 'don't mess with me' she exuded out of a million in a heartbeat.

_I will never doubt you again, Shepard. _

– – – –

Tali put her new shotgun, based on but larger than her old Spectre-model shotgun thanks to modifications and improvements courtesy of Taigun, to the test. The Geth had been working on improving reloading speed with recoil-assisted mechanisms for the past several decades, starting with the period in Quarian society when chemical propellant was still all the rage – some five hundred years ago – and trying to adapt that to Mass Effect weaponry. The Quarians, and by extension the Council, used something similar, but anything that got rounds downrange faster and with higher accuracy was worth a look, regardless of where it came from. Her new system broke a bit of metal from the ammo block – instead of shaving aforementioned block – and then cracked it so it would explode in a hail of fine pellets. The result was anathema to unprotected flesh and shielding, at the cost of reducing the effectiveness against armour to practically nothing. And because a vulnerability to armour simply couldn't be allowed to exist, the pre-cracking mechanism could be turned off with a switch, restoring the gun's penetrative power at the cost of effectiveness against shields and unprotected organic matter.

This shotgun was one of the few models where pumping the slide wasn't just for intimidation. The breaker's – a re-purposed shaver – reset could be sped up by pumping the slide, bringing the refire rate from 1.2 seconds between shots to 1.0 seconds between shots. Naturally, a switch was present that would allow the pump to eject the thermal clip.

And it was downright _unfair_ in this situation. The armour the other freelancers wore was little more than clothing, only good for bolstering the confidence of the ignorant, and before her shotgun, it was even less than that. Combined with her Kaihar's rifle fire – and Tali fully intended on questioning her on how she was able to get two ammo mods active concurrently when everyone knew the hard physical limit for such was one – and the heavy sniper Taigun used, a model based on the Widow, which in turn was based on a three-hundred year old Quarian design updated to modern standards, and the freelancers...

The freelancers died with all the swiftness of a snowball that found itself in Hell.

Suddenly, a bullet whipped past her hood, putting a small notch in the fabric. Tali swore as she ducked behind a convenient crate at the entrance to the building.

A split-second later, her swears turned into a shrill scream of surprise as her faceplate was crazed by the impact of a high-velocity round.

– – – –

Shepard's perception of time seemed to slow as her brain went into overdrive upon hearing the scream. Her synaptic fire rate shot through the roof as she looked over and assessed targets at speeds that even a Geth Prime would have envied if it could feel such an emotion.

Locating her Tali's assailant wasn't hard. There were few weapons civilians could legally get their hands on out there that could craze a Quarian faceplate, and only one freelancer still lived that carried such a weapon. It had been a lucky shot, one the freelancer could not possibly reproduce if his life depended on it.

Unfortunately for the freelancer, it did. She brought her weapon to bear before he could process his not-so-lucky shot, but his head exploded from a heavy-calibre round before she could fire. _Archangel uses a Mantis, _Shepard thought, recalling the distinctive sound of the Mantis line of sniper rifles emanating from Archangel's perch. _Which are lighter calibre than whatever this was. __T__his must have been Taigun_.

She nodded her thanks to the Geth and selected a new target.

No mercy. Up until this point, Shepard had at least made a token effort to ignore the fire in her veins and aim for kneecaps and elbows, but now?

They had hurt her teammate, and so they would die.

It was as simple as that.

– – – –

_'Step one: check suit integrity.' _

The voice of her old teacher, well before she had received her first suit, cut through Tali's panic. She fumbled for her omni-tool, only to blink as her suit's integrity status appeared on her faceplate like a HUD one would expect in a fighter game. _Oh right, we'd been working on that, hadn't we? _Contrary to her expectations, the crazing didn't render the HUD illegible as she knew the previous version of the HUD would have been.

It was just the first in the many upgrades the Geth had given, or planned for, her suit – all of them vetted or in the process of being vetted by herself, of course –, and it appeared to be very functional. The original idea had been to link the upgrades to a neural chip so she could mentally activate the functions, but she'd thoroughly vetoed that idea – shotgun-enforced, naturally – as there was _no way in Hell_ that she would allow anything Geth-related to interface with her mind.

She breathed a sigh of relief as she saw that her suit integrity was still intact. The containment she depended on to survive hadn't been broken, which was a minor miracle in itself. That bullet had definitely been addressed to 'Tali'Zorah vas Neema nar Rayya', but it didn't have quite the punch to send her to her Ancestor's loving embrace.

'_Step two: __assess damage__. __Step three: initiate repairs.__' _

Her faceplate was crazed, which required a full clean-room to repair and replace. The two clean-rooms she knew of that were any sort of close by were the one near the lab she'd been working and the one aboard the Zero-One, as she'd been calling the Geth ship. Neither of them were particularly close by, so a full repair and replace was out. She couldn't really see all that well with a crazed faceplate, so an emergency repair kit would have to do.

Fortunately, after her harrowing experience with Saren's thugs a year and change before she'd taken to carrying multiple of the things around even when she wasn't at a danger of being shot at. The thick paste easily crept into the jagged cracks, blending them into the rest of the facemask and making it easier for her to see. It would still require a full repair and replace, but at least she could see once more.

Unfortunately, she was now without her shotgun. It lay there in plain sight where she'd been shot, two and a half metres away from her current position. There were still a number of freelancers left, though if it were a dozen from the earlier two hundred that went in she'd be highly surprised, and they weren't _that _bad a shot that they'd miss her as she rushed out of cover.

Which meant she'd get to field-test another device she'd developed. She tapped her omni-tool with a grin on her that, if it could be seen, would send quite a number of the freelancers running with fear.

"Go for the optics, Chiktikka," she said as she released the new and improved Chiktikka vas Paus, v29.14. Now with improved rocket payload. "Go for the optics!"

She dove for her shotgun as Chiktikka shot rockets at several freelancers, picked it up in her subsequent roll and in a fluid motion flooded a nearby freelancer's knee with metal shards. It wouldn't kill him, but his fighting career was effectively over.

"I hope you were the one that shot me, bastard," she said, turning around to put more metal shards downrange and into freelancers, but they had noticed that their numbers were running dangerously low and had apparently gotten some brains. All remaining combat-capable freelancers – all ten of them – had sought the refuge of cover that her shotgun couldn't easily pierce.

Scowling, she pumped her shotgun and ordered Chiktikka to flush one of them out into the open. She still had quite a bit of anger to work out.

– – – –

"Area clear," Shepard said almost on auto-pilot once the last freelancer had fallen. She nodded to Taigun and Tali – who had recovered very nicely indeed, that rollshot was a thing of beauty and that drone was something else indeed –, and Tali took the right side of the stairs to the room Archangel was using as a perch while Shepard stuck to the left. Taigun covered them both from the middle. A minor moment of tension was dispelled when they rounded the column at the top of the stairs and found that they were indeed alone in this area of the old refinery. Except for Archangel, but he was an ally so he didn't count.

Shepard stalked cautiously towards the door separating Archangel's balcony from the rest and swiftly set about undoing the lock with one hand, the other still clutching her rifle. It fell in about two seconds, opening the door with the customary hiss of hydraulics.

Archangel's room was another lounge area. Several couches, their paintjobs tattered and their cushions sporting colourful markings Shepard wasn't keen on introducing herself or her armour to, stood at one end of the room while several rows of bunks filled the far end.

And in the middle, looking out the large window overlooking the bridge they had just cleared of freelancers, stood the massive form of a Turian in full battle-armour. He raised a single digit in the universal signal for 'give me a second', and half a breath later took out a straggler that had found cover and somehow survived their rampage.

"Huh," Shepard said intelligently as Archangel turned around and set the gun down, sitting himself down on the edge of a planter. "I thought we'd gotten them all."

"As did I, my Kaihar."

"Evidently you didn't," Archangel said as he removed his helmet. The face of Garrus Vakarian greeted them. "Sprits, Shepard, it's good to see you again."

"Likewise, Garrus," she said with a grin as she took in his appearance. _Gaunt eyes, drooping mandibles, that almost unnoticeable hollowing of the skin over his cheekbones... he's dead-tired. It's a wonder he's still standing. _"You look like shit."

Garrus grimaced, his mandibles widening and dropping a little with the motion. "Killing mercs is hard work, you know? Especially on my own."

"I can imagine," she said, then turned to Tali. "Tali, see if you can't re-secure the door. Taigun, optics on the bridge while Garrus and I talk."

"Affirmative, Shepard-Spectre."

"A friendly Geth?" Garrus asked incredulously after Taigun had turned around to watch the bridge. "You sure it's not a convoluted ploy to get you killed?"

"Definitely," she said, turning back to her Turian friend. "There's a story connected to it, of course, and it's not a short one. I'll tell you all about it back on the ship, preferably over a nice drink."

"Assuming we get out over here," he said. "You bring an army with you?"

"Nah," she replied. "Just the three of us."

Garrus' mandibles clenched and lifted a little, the Turian equivalent to frowning. The Turian mandibles were in a very real sense comparable to Human eyebrows, but with a few purposes in the old days Human eyebrows didn't have. Most of them to do with mating. "Then that's going to be tough," he said with a thoughtful expression. "But not impossible. I've held this building for days now thanks to the bridge, and it should be even easier with the three of you here. Just a shame that getting out that way is just as suicidal for us as getting in is for them."

Shepard nodded. "One of the Blue Suns mercs was talking about blowing their way in through the basement. You got something to counter that?"

"Yeah," Garrus said. "As much as I didn't expect the mercs to ever get wise, I took precautions just in case. There's blast doors we can shut that'll stop them right in their tracks."

"Nice," Shepard said. "How abou-"

"Alert: LOKI-model mechs inbound," Taigun announced, and Shepard and Garrus' heads turned to look over the bridge.

"Looks like we're not quite out of the woods yet," Shepard said. "Taigun, stay up here and assist Garrus in keeping the mercs off the bridge. Tali and I will ensure that no one makes it past the lower doors."

Garrus chuckled melancholically. "Just like the old days, eh Shepard?"

"Yeah," she said with a nostalgic grin. "Just like the old days. Come on, Tali. We've got merc butt to kick."

"Right behind you, my Kaihar."

– – – –

Shepard ordered Tali to the flanks when they reached the lower level, which was used as a garage. Aircars, airtrucks, hoverbikes and other assorted machinery, augmented by crates that contained things Shepard wasn't sure of, were strewn about here and there, forming a haphazard maze of sorts. At the far end, the twisted and still-smoking wreckage of a security barrier was host to the sight of dozens upon dozens of figures moving in.

Had Shepard's eyes still been her pre-Alchera eyes, she would have trouble identifying the invaders, but with her new eyes she could clearly see the masses of Vorcha and small handful of Krogan storming in, occasionally accompanied by Humans, Batarian, or Asari.

"Blood Pack with Suns and Eclipse augments," she said softly into her comm unit. "Tali, focus on stripping shields and barriers."

Tali nodded and switched out her tungsten ammo block for disruptor rounds. "Will do, my Kaihar."

Shepard checked her loadout and decided to swap the phasic ammo she had currently equipped, complementing incendiary's effectiveness against most types of armour, for tungsten ammo. Tali was more than adequate to keep shields and barrier to a minimum, especially since it wouldn't be the first time they did this routine.

"Alright, Tali," Shepard said. "Stick to the flanks, harass them with your drone and your shotgun. Top priority is shields and barriers. Asari first, then Human, Vorcha as opportunity presents. I'll deal with the Krogan and go full anti-armour. Just like old times."

"Right," Tali said, pumping her shotgun. "Just like old times."

– – – –

"Heads up, heavy mech inbound."

"Query: is it in possession of markings denoting its possession by the Eclipse Sisterhood?"

"It is. Why?"

"We have rewritten its IF/F on our approach. To quote Tali-Creator: 'relax, kick back, and enjoy a little carnage'."

– – – –

Naturally, dealing with the Krogan was easier said than done. Even if she had plenty of experience dealing with multiple Krogan at once, thanks to Virmire, half a dozen Krogan at once was far from easy. Fortunately, there was a way to make it very simple – though the difference between simple and easy should be noted – and thanks to Kokuo she now possessed a much more readily available method.

Normally, her rifle lacked the punch to do what she oft considered the simplest way to deal with Krogan, which was to set them on fire. A Krogan on fire gave in to their bloodlust, and while the bloodlust generally made them walking tanks, it made them _predictable_ walking tanks. A Krogan that had surrendered to the bloodlust was a Krogan that didn't think tactically. Unless they were Battlemasters with more than half a millennium of experience under their belt, which these weren't. For one, all Battlemasters were biotics.

This meant that Shepard could safely put their flesh to the flame and not have to worry about cunning stratagems from the Krogan. With the new possibility of tungsten-incendiary hybrid bullets she could punch through the armour the Krogan wore and expose the flesh beneath to the thermite inside the incendiaries. Even Krogan regeneration had issues with thermite.

Fortunately, none of the Krogan wore shields of any kind. Either they weren't smart enough to wear a shield generator, or they were of the belief that armour was the only thing a Krogan needed.

Six quick volleys of bullets later, six guttural roars of pain resounded through the garage as the thermite made quick work of the Krogan armour and some of their flesh. As the Krogan reeled back from the sudden pain that flooded their nerves, Shepard shipped her assault rifle and drew her slightly-oversize shotgun, preloaded with incendiary ammo.

Two seconds later, the first of the Krogan charged her with a deafening roar. More than two hundred kilos of flesh and metal thundered towards her, the weapon in his hands completely forgotten except for its use as a club. With a mocking laugh – again, all to rile up the Krogan and make them think less with their brains, she had her combat-grandstanding instinct thoroughly suppressed over the years in the Alliance – she cartwheeled out of the way and took the opportunity presented to her to pump an incendiary slug in his neck.

It ripped right through to exit the Krogan by way of his mouth.

Shepard scowled in time with the Krogan's attempts at agonized screams. She'd been aiming for the brain. The loss of an oesophagus would only inconvenience the Krogan, not put it permanently out of commission like it would have any other race whose name wasn't Vorcha. She sidestepped another Krogan charge, but before she could put a slug into that Krogan's brain – properly, this time – she had to rapidly cartwheel out of a third charge. When she was forced to continue cartwheeling because the fourth had aimed for the spot where she was going to end up but had messed up his timing, Shepard was starting to feel worried that these Krogan were capable of thinking through the bloodrage, but the lack of follow-up to the frantic dodge dissuaded her of that notion. Absent-mindedly she blasted the head of a Vorcha that was getting too close for comfort, then sidestepped the fifth charging Krogan, putting a slug through the back of his shoulder as he ran past her.

The fight continued in this vein for quite a few minutes. Most of the Vorcha were adequately distracted by Tali – the few that weren't were soon dead by her own shotgun –, as were the other mercs, while Shepard continued dodging charging Krogan – one of whom seemed more lucid than the others, if his aim was anything to go by – and lining their heads with slugs when the charging Krogan inevitably passed. There were a few close calls, as combat wasn't really combat without close calls, but these were a bunch of barely dry-behind-the-ears Krogan and she was – at least, used to be – _Commander Fucking Shepard_. Spectre Fucking Shepard didn't have quite the same ring to it, in her opinion.

After ten minutes of dodging and putting slugs into Krogan, Shepard stepped to the side and raised her shotgun the exact same way she'd been doing for the past ten minutes – after all, it was _simple_, not easy or fast – and found, to her great surprise, that the charging Krogan she'd been dodging, the last one of the half-dozen, wasn't there. She blinked twice and looked around, spotting the Krogan in question lying face-down on the floor with a massive hole in him. When had that happened, and why had she not felt or heard the explosion?

"And that's why you don't mess with Chiktikka vas Paus," Tali said with a tone of finality. Shepard looked over to Tali's side of the battlefield and saw two dozen dead Vorcha, a small number of Humans – one of which was less one leg and had bled out, another minus his head, and two were groaning from the removal of an arm, though the lack of blood indicated cauterization –, and six Asari – three obviously dead, two that appeared to be simply unconscious, and one without her right arm – lying around.

And Tali herself?

She was favouring one side of her ribcage, several scorch marks marred her previously pristine suit, and there were numerous dents in her enviro-suit, complemented by two places where her suit had been decorated with fresh spirals in the metal, one just above her left pectoral, one on her right shoulder.

Shepard whistled. "Hot damn. Nice work, Tali. You've really grown up since I took you in back on the Citadel."

Tali fidgeted a little. "It's nothing, really."

"Nothing my ass," Shepard said, resisting the urge to continue with 'you took a level in badass' because _one _rapper of indeterminate quality in her life was enough. "Anyway, your suit's still good to go? Those Warp impacts look nasty."

"It'll be fine," Tali said. "Neither of the Asari had even basic Huntress training, if Liara's accounts of the training her mother put her through are any indication. They weren't even good enough to affect the structural integrity of my suit very much, despite appearances."

"That's good," Shepard said as slow and heavy footfalls, heavy enough to cause the ground to shake, approached them. There were few things with enough weight, with or without armour, to actually shake the ground while walking, and since there were no Geth Primes on Omega, there was only one thing that could cause such tremors, even if light ones. "'Cause I think Garm is approaching."

Shepard tapped her comm unit. "Hey Garrus."

"_Yeah?" _Garrus said, his voice almost drowned by the sharp crack of Mantis fire and the deep, thunderous booms of Taigun's own Widow-derivative.

"Any tips on how to deal with Garm?"

"_Nothing in particular, __aside from being a tough son of a bitch, even by Krogan standards__. He's biotic, but not as good or powerful as Wrex. He makes up for it by having the most powerful regeneration I've ever seen __on a Krogan, __almost__ on par with a Vorcha__. Nearly killed him a while ago, but he soaked up __five__ thermal clips of full-bore Phaeston fire without dying until reinforcements arrived and I had to disengage." _

Shepard frowned. "So... more bullets than usual in shorter than usual unless we can blow his head to bits?"

"_Pretty much."_

"Great," she said with a sigh. "Thanks, Garrus."

"_Don't mention it."_

"Anything useful Garrus shared, Kaihar?" Tali asked.

"Yeah," Shepard said. "His biotics are second-rate compared to Wrex, and as is usual with Krogan, the best way to deal with him would be to blast his head to smithereens. If that fails, more dakka."

"More dakka is always good," Tali said agreeably. "Especially against Krogan."

"Indeed," Shepard said absently as the Krogan in question came into view. Shepard's eyes roamed over the exposed head, though it would probably be more accurate to compare it to a collection of scars that happened to house a brain and other accessories. The rest of his body was covered in armour that reminded her of Wrex's old suit, but the hints of rust beneath the paint indicated that this suit was a lot older, or had seen environments tougher than Wrex had. Given the positively ancient look in Garm's eyes, it was probably a bit of both.

And if Garm himself wasn't enough, the massive shotgun he held in his hands only added to her problems. Stock M-300 Claymores were a pain to fight against, and Shepard _highly_ doubted that this particular Claymore ever had been stock.

He stopped about six metres in front of her, studying her with those beady eyes that had seen more than Shepard would for a very long time.

"You made a huge mistake, freelancer," Garm said, his voice gravelly like most old Krogan. "No one double-crosses the Blood Pack and lives to tell the tale."

Shepard turned to face him, her shotgun at the ready. "I'm no freelancer."

"Last I checked, you weren't a part of one of the groups and you fought for money," Garm said with a snort. "In my eyes, that makes you a freelancer." His shot, sudden but far from unexpected, lanced out from his shotgun, sending dozens of spinning slivers of metal hurling towards her. Fortunately, Shepard's shields held, even if only barely.

Shepard returned fire, but the slivers of metal she sent downrange were stopped by Garm's barrier. "What gave you the idea I fought for money?" Shepard asked. "I don't need money."

She pumped her shotgun and pointed it at Garm once more. "I'm Spectre _fucking _Shepard."

Her shotgun roared again and sent a slug barrelling through the air towards Garm.

Garm's barriers took it without too much issue, just like the last one. "The impudence of youth, Shep-ugh," Garm said as her and Tali's combined fire impacted his barrier like a series of sledgehammers, staggering him. Shepard ducked for cover as Garm raised his shotgun in her direction once again, narrowly avoiding having her head caved in by a Carnage. Shepard switched off the Mass Effect field in her weapon and pulled the trigger surreptitiously before turning it back on again. She had to get inside his barrier without him noticing. "Tali, get his attention. I've got a plan."

"Roger, Kaihar," Tali said. She raised the volume of her suit's speakers with a grin. "Oi! _Bosh'tet __l__eeran'__t__et!_"

Shepard had no idea what that meant, but apparently Garm did. "What did you just say, pyjak?" Garm asked menacingly, ignoring or missing Shepard climbing on top of a nearby aircar. _His fault for getting riled u__p, though I__'ll have to ask for a translation later__._

"I said," Tali shouted. "'_Bosh'tet __l__eeran'__t__et!'" _

"DIE!" Garm roared as he brought his shotgun to bear on the Quarian like a Krogan possessed, who laughed as she dove for cover. Shepard grabbed the opportunity to jump from the aircar towards Garm's back and with no effort whatsoever landed on his shoulders. Garm had been that distracted by whatever Tali said that he'd completely missed her. "Huh?" he said, and tried to look up, but Krogan anatomy wasn't really meant for looking up.

Before Garm could really process what happened, Shepard had unleashed a point-blank Carnage into his head. As she'd intended, the blast was too close for Garm's biotic barrier to stop the blast, and Garm's head simply ceased to be. It met its Maker in a fine red mist of gore and other giblets, painting the front of Shepard's armour red. Shepard somersaulted off the now-headless Garm and landed in a crouch at the same time that Garm's corpse hit the ground with a deep thud.

"No way is he getting up from that," Shepard said. "C'mon, I'll keep a weather eye as you close the door. We've got to get back topside, who knows what Garrus has gotten himself into."

"Right," Tali said with a nod, and walked towards the door to shut it.

"_Shepard, you done down there?" _

"Yeah, took out Garm and we're about to close the doors, why?"

"_Garm's dead?" _Garrus asked, but before she could reply he continued. "_Good riddance. Anyway, t__he mercs are gathering for another mass rush, and since they've got armour that's more than paper I'm not sure if we're capable of keeping them back."_

"Alright," Shepard replied as the door started closing slower than she liked. At the same time, she shipped her shotgun back onto the small of her back and drew her assault rifle. "We'll be on our way as soon as these damned doors close."

The thick blast door closed a good fifteen seconds later with a resounding thump, the high-pitched whine of the alarm ceasing at the same moment. Shepard rushed back up the stairs, Tali right on her heels.

Twenty mercs greeted them at the top of the stairwell, and in the distance she could barely make out Tarak entering the gunship. She scowled and assessed her opponents. Ten Humans, two Salarians, three Asari. She rushed for cover and swapped out the Tungsten and Incendiary ammo currently in her gun for the much more useful Warp and Phasic ammo. With her new ammunition types in place, she leaned out from behind cover and brought her weapon to bear.

She had mercs to kill.

– – – –

Tali's head jerked up as a familiar whine made its presence known to her suit's audio pick-ups from where she had sought cover at the top of the stairwell. She recoiled slightly as memories of the last time she'd faced such a weapon – a Cerberus outpost on an Ancestors-forsaken planet whose name she never learned – and how close to death she'd come at that weapon's hands. Her suit had been punctured in three places, her visor had been cracked, and there had been some damage to her filtration systems. She was fairly certain that the only reason she survived that was because the Ancestors had, for whatever reason, rejected her joining them so soon.

"Kaihar!" she yelled. "Gunship!"

Her Kaihar swore, and Tali steadfastly ignored the sinking feeling in her gut that started at her Kaihar's reply as she ordered Chiktikka out to distract her opponents. Shooting at mercs sounded a good way to distract herself from the shit that was about to hit the fan.

She could deal with what was coming when it was actually here.

– – – –

Two minutes later, things went to Hell.

An argument could be made that things already _were _Hell, but when an explosion sounded from the upper floor, followed by Garrus' sharp cry of pain and shock, and then the sudden _absence_ of aforementioned cry, Tali had to redefine her definition of the word 'Hell'.

Garrus was her friend. He was a _very good_ friend. He was one of her siblings-in-arms. They had fought together, they had _bled_ together – more literally than she was really comfortable with, truth be told –. According to ancients customs in both their societies, they were now bound tighter than brother and sister were, and Tali was something of a traditionalist. Not as much as her father, but she felt that tradition had to be adhered to whenever even remotely feasible.

As such, an affront to her _taai'kerran_, her battle-brother, was an affront to her, never mind the history Garrus and her shared that made it all the more personal.

Tali's vision turned red much the same way it did in the old cartoons she watched after the Alchera incident and a blurry outline appeared on everyone around her that was still alive. She could see a prone outline on the floor above that was dimming rapidly, a veritable supernova at the spot her Kaihar stood, and a wide variety of colours of different intensities where her enemies stood.

Her hands felt... _wrong,_ but Tali didn't care about what was currently going on with her, only how she could use it to harm those who hurt her, since her _taai'kerran _wasn't in a position to do it himself.

She gripped the nearest hostile outline she could see – a golden glow with red horns belonging to a Batarian ten metres away – and pulled. Briefly, she could see a formless, translucent something escape the Batarian before it faded and the Batarian dropped to the floor.

A few repetitions saw the rest of the mercs light-less and on the floor. Without further ado, she rushed upstairs to tend to her _taai'kerran,_ barely registering that her Kaihar had said something.

– – – –

Shepard was gaping like a fish at her little Tali's retreating back.

The battle had been going like many battles do, messily. This batch of mercs had clearly received more training, or had more combat experience, and were adequately using cover and suppressing fire even if they failed to capitalize on it.

Then... the explosion. Garrus' pained scream, suddenly cut off. Tali standing up, dispelling her own building head of rage to yell at her to get the hell down. Tali ignored her and reached out with her right arm and pulled at the air.

Ten metres away, a Batarian dropped dead. Less than five seconds, and another nine pulls, later all the other mercs were dead, and Shepard's jaw was drinking tea with the floor. She had a feeling that something profound had just happened, but she wasn't sure exactly what.

"What the hell just happened?" she half-whispered as Tali rushed up the stairs. She shook her head and rushed after her, remembering that Tali was that way because of something that had happened to Garrus.

Whatever it was, it involved an explosion and a cry of pain and therefore could not possibly be good.

– – – –

It wasn't. Despite the presence of concerned Quarian leaning over him, pushing against something Shepard couldn't see that somehow slowed down the declination of his vitals, the condition of Garrus' body was easily visible. His left mandible was torn off by the explosion, heavily burning that side of his face. His legs were shot to hell, his right arm was broken, his left shattered. Other assorted bits and pieces of his face and body were lying around, scattered by the rocket impact. Yellowish-white spires of calcium jutted out from his face, but he was miraculously _still alive_, though that wouldn't last if he didn't receive medical attention in time despite whatever Tali was doing. And it was, in very direct ways, all because of her.

_This happened because I allowed it._

The gunship had been a sitting duck, easily fried with Raiton so that it wouldn't get off the ground. The mechanic had been taken out of commission, and all it would have taken was a single flare of lightning-infused chakra to put an end to it. It would have been simplicity itself. A simple, single flare of chakra and the biggest threat the mercs could wield would have been less useful than a thin hammer.

Yet she didn't.

"Just hold on, Garrus. We're gonna get you some help, you hear me?"

_This happened because I, through inaction, permitted it to happen. _

"Just talk to me, Garrus. Talk to your friendly neighbourhood buckethead, Garrus. Garrus? Talk to me, Garrus. GarRUS? GARRUS?!"

Eyes blank and unseeing of the here and now, even as a tiny, tiny part of her was focused enough on the present to be fiercely proud of Tali for having the presence of mind to take charge where she couldn't, Shepard unwillingly remembered the momentous moments in their previous partnership with the downed Turian.

_'Regulations and orders do not exist to limit you, __Garrus,' she snapped at him after a __hostage situation__ on a nameless planet. 'T__hey exist so that your superiors, in my case the Council, don't get swamped in the consequences of your actions. __Such as shooting prematurely at the target while __the rest of us were__ setting up an ambush.' _

_'But he was in my sights and I had a clear shot!' _

_'And he had a hostage close to him. What if you'd miscalculated the wind and hit the hostage instead?' _

_'You're a Spectre.__' __The unspoke__n__ 'the rules don't apply to you' hung in the air between as clear as day._

_'So what if I am? Do you think I _want _to show up to that hostage's family and say 'sorry sir, ma'am, but your daughter is dead because one of my men _made a mistake?' _Do you?' _

_His mandibles slacked, and he deflated a little. 'No, I don't.' _

_'__Exactly. You've got potential, Garrus, or I wouldn't have brought you with me when __you asked to join back__ on the Citadel, but you've got to let this rogue bullshit go, or things are going to get very nasty, very fast. __And not for the enemy.__'_

He'd done some thinking then, but even after that he still had something of a callous disregard for the rules. It wasn't until they met Saelon that she'd really gotten through to him.

"NARUTO! I DON'T CARE WHAT YOUR STATUS WITH THE DOTOR'S RECRUITMENT IS, WE NEED MEDEVAC NOW!"

_'It's all about choice, Garrus. As long as Saelon chose to come quietly, it wasn't our place to execute him but to bring him in so that he could officially be tried and prosecuted. Once Saelon _chose_ to attack us, his life was forfeit. It is as simple as that.'_

_'As simple as that, huh?' _

_'Yes. In this case, it is not the action that matters in this case, but the motivation. In other cases it is the action, not the motivation, that clinches it. Ask yourself, would you after the fact be happy with what you did why you did it? Or would you feel hollow at choosing the right thing for the wrong reasons, or your choice to do the wrong thing for the right reasons?_

_'I can guarantee you that if you killed Saelon while he was not resisting, we'd all have been, Wrex probably excluded, disgusted with you for allowing revenge to overtake your self-control. Revenge is a powerful thing, I know, Spirits know I know, but it _cannot_ be allowed to control you. Guide you, yes. Control you, never. Just as love, just as rage, just as any powerful enough emotion cannot be allowed to control you, lest it undo you as it undoes your enemies.'_

He'd stalked off after that, and when he returned to active duty a fortnight later it was as a wholly changed person. He was much more laid-back, _cool_ even. He'd been cracking jokes, shown much more maturity in following orders and regulations even when they didn't suit him, and in general became something she had been proud of.

And now, he would be taken from her.

This, she could not abide without retribution.

Her _teammate_. Her _friend_. Her _companion_. Her _brother-in-arms_.

She turned her gaze, radiating enough anger to heat the sun, to the gunship that Tarak was piloting. The gunship that had done so much damage to her friend, the pilot that had done so much damage to _her_.

The worst part of it all had been that it had been _her_ vow to not use her chakra that allowed this to occur. If she hadn't made that vow, she could have used some Raiton to fry the gunship when she first saw it, or blasted it as Tarak boarded it.

But she didn't. Because she was a bloody _coward_, afraid of the Reapers' Indoctrination even when there was no evidence that anyone Indoctrinated was watching.

Her head screaming with rage, her mind yearning for _retribution –_ never revenge, not since _that _day –, and her anger heightened by more than a little self-incrimination, she decided that _overkill _was just what the doctor ordered.

The only thing left open was the specific attack she'd use, and that, to be entirely honest, wasn't a hard decision.

Fire defined her life as far as she could remember. Back on Mindoir, she had gotten into scuffles with the other youths, and this continued in Mindoir high school, where she met Helena Saduntytär, her Earth-born arch-nemesis before the raid. She had fought tooth and nail with the toughest of boys, but could turn around and dress up with the vainest of girls at her school – Helena definitely classified as 'vain' –, because the _fire_ inside her would not settle for a second place in _anything_, whether it be battle or beauty.

When she woke on that Tuesday from a fear-induced nap to her sister's brains splattered all over her and her mother with a blade in her heart, Batarian semen dripping out of both her female relatives, and five sets of four beady eyes leering at their kill over the sights of an old-fashioned hunting rifle – part of her wondering why they hadn't done the same to her –, something within her had snapped, filled her with an unending volcanic _rage_. She had killed that Batarian before both knew what happened, and blacked out as she dumped the rifle's magazine in the general direction of the group. According to the stories from the Alliance Marines that were just a minute too late to save her sister's and mother's life, she'd killed three out of the other four in that bastard's group before the Marines drove the last, one by name of Tarak M'dal, off. She swore then that one day he would die at her hands.

The Alliance Navy recognized her fire – it wasn't very uncommon to find it in servicemen and women, after all – and tried to control it as they had done to so many others in the past.

But her fire refused to be tamed. Realizing early on the futility of their current course, they had honed the fire instead of trying to control it, and they had succeeded. She was the closest thing one could get to a berseker that wouldn't give in to the bloodlust, though the Alliance couldn't be given credit for everything. Kasumi had done her own part by reminding her that life wasn't all about revenge.

And then... Alchera. Or rather, Parnack.

She removed her helmet, showing the ferocity of her expression to the world. She clasped her hands together to form handseals, and called on her chakra, ready to send the individual responsible for so much of the pain in her life to a flaming, metallic grave.

This bastard would _pay_.

– – – –

_Ram _shaped her chakra into a ball in front of her with a tiny, tiny hole so that she could funnel elemental chakra into it. Simultaneously, she coated her mouth, oesophagus, stomach, and lungs in a protective layer of the stuff as well. It was slightly redundant, but with what she was about to do, 'better safe than sorry' was wholly applicable. This was her ultimate attack, bar none, and it had taken nearly a year of keeping five clones working on it at all times.

Naruto-sensei had once shown her the inspiration to this technique in an attempt to help her in mastering some of the spherical Katon and Yōton jutsu. It was a devastating, but simple technique that called upon a ball of chakra, compressed it, swallowed it, and spit it at the target. Sensei called it the 'Bijūdama', and it was an attack capable of extraordinary destruction, as the three-mile long, half-mile deep conical trench that originated from the impact site could attest to. This technique was similar, but used fire chakra instead of that weird positive and negative chakra.

This cost it some power, but what it lost in power it made up in focus.

_Tiger_, to call upon her chakra and immediately convert it into the appropriate element. _Her _element; Fire. She fed this flame into the tiny hole in the sphere, and kept on feeding until the sphere overflowed with fire chakra, and then she increased the flow further as her hands flowed into a different seal. During the next stage, air inside the sphere would be a _very bad _thing.

_Bird_, for compression. She compressed the flame inside the ball, continuously feeding it more fire because it was getting close to the point where air inside the ball would spell disaster. She thanked the Ancestors that chakra fire could burn on both chakra and air, or this attack would not have worked. Over the course of a few seconds, the fire turned orange, then yellow, then _white_. The room got unbearably hot, even with Shepard's best efforts to reduce the projected heat to something manageable.

White fire wasn't nearly as hot as some of the things that were used these days, but it still reached a solid five hundred thousand degrees Celsius. Additionally, because it was _chakra_ with a fire nature, not natural fire, many processes occurred at this temperature that would have taken much, much more with normal fire. One such thing was near-instantanous ionization of air. Her initial thought at discovering this had been to develop the chakra equivalent of a thermonuclear fusion bomb, but despite a solid year of having three Kage Bunshin working on it every waking moment she was no closer to bringing the idea into reality. The white fire simply wasn't hot enough.

Thus, she looked into other uses for a ball of white Katon. Within three seconds she had two. The first, this one, was essentially a plasma grenade.

The ball started to deform as the fire chakra within compressed, and Shepard moved onto the next seal in the sequence.

_Rat_, to ensure that the sphere would remain a sphere without halting the compression. She kept this seal until her control started to slip, at which point she cut off the flow of chakra to the sphere and at the same instant shifted her hands to the last seal in line.

_Ox_ completed the sequence, and sealed up the sphere. The white fire inside was trapped, and the unbearable heat diminished rapidly because the neutral chakra contained it. When all was said and done, the white fire chakra was _chakra_. More specifically, it was _her _chakra.

Shepard slowly opened her mouth, her head and jaws moving to encapsulate the small sphere.

She swallowed.

Bullets flew from the gunship's barrels as Tarak got over his stupor at seeing the mesmerizing white flame after Shepard swallowed it. The air was torn asunder by the screaming rockets and bullets barrelling downrage as Tarak figured that whatever the tiny ball was, it couldn't possibly be good. However... he had forgotten, in his haste to get lead into Shepard, that Archangel had damaged one of the sensors the targeting VI used to determine position, and he paid the price as everything he fired at her went wide.

Shepard ignored the noise. She paid the rubble sent up by the rockets' impacts no mind, even as they left shallow gouges on her exposed skin. The bullets came closer and closer, several

"**Katon**," she said through a mostly-closed mouth, and the tiny ball of chakra – reinforced inside her stomach – started its journey back to the outside world.

The moment it entered the top half of her oesophagus, she finished the incantation.

"**Tenchi ****Enjin**."

The ball left her mouth and sped towards the gunship at a rapid clip. Tarak diverting his fire to the ball in an effort to prematurely detonate it, but with the lack of a properly functioning VI, he failed to hit it with either bullet or rocket despite valiant attempts to correct.

Shepard coated herself in the thickest coat of chakra she could to weather the storm even as she turned to run to cover, as futile as the action was.

The ball made contact with the gunship and the world went white. Then black.

– – – –

"Patient: Vakarian, Garrus. Turian. Seven feet, two hundred and fifty pounds. Heart rate one-sixty, blood pressure one-seventy two over one hundred, within acceptable limits for Turian his size. No further change from last log. End log."

Shepard's awareness returned slowly, like a fog lifting on a humid day. She heard a dry, somewhat reedy voice, similar to the one the Salarian Councillor Valern had, talk about medical matters. Probably a doctor, then. Given who she was and what she had ordered Naruto-sensei to do, that voice was probably Dr. Solus.

"Patient: Shepard, Aurora. Human. Five feet, three inches, one hundred and thirty pounds. Heart rate forty and increasing. Blood pressure one-twenty five over eighty-one, well within acceptable boundaries. Patient is waking up. End log."

Shepard groaned a little at her pounding headache and slowly cracked open her eyes. She was feeling more tired than she had felt ever since Elysium, where she had fought a guerilla war for seventy-two hours against a Batarian slaver raid all by her lonesome, without sleep.

"Good morning, Shepard," a serene female voice said softly, only small hints of agitation and exasperation lacing it. "How do you feel? Is there a marked absence of tingling in your knees and elbows, a decisive lack of pain in your left arm, left femur, right tibia, and essentially your entire torso?"

Shepard resisted the urge to flinch – the last time she heard that particular brand of serenity was one of the few times she'd felt the wrath of Kokuo – and thought about the question and nodded, hissing at the pain the motion sent through her neck. "I'm fine," she said, her voice cracking. "How long have I been out?"

"I sincerely doubt that, Shepard," Kokuo said, still in that very dangerous serene tone. "That jutsu, as you are very well aware, has a minimum range, which is approximately double the range you actually used it on. To answer your second query, two galactic standard days."

"I know," Shepard said softly, taking some of the wind out of Kokuo's sails before turning to the Salarian. "How's Garrus?"

"Healing nicely," the Salarian replied. "Quick work saved mandible. Required supplies from local clinic, some assistance, but he will recover. Kept under anaesthetic while healing completes. Should take no more than two days."

Shepard sighed. That was one hell of a load off her mind. It was then that she noticed the shining chrome and realized she was on board the Geth ship. At the same time, she realized she was naked save for a sheet. Part of her wanted to grasp the sheet and ensure it covered everything essential, but the other part realized it was already doing so.

"Who decided to remove my armour?" she asked as the Salarian ran his omni-tool over her.

"Geth. Required assistance from us all, armour fused to skin due to heat. Miraculously, weapons survived."

Shepard flinched. "I figured something like that might happen," she said.

"Then why did you perform the jutsu?" Kokuo asked sharply.

"I wasn't thinking clearly," Shepard said. "Garrus is a good friend, a battle-brother, and a solid confidante. When I saw him lying there, bleeding out, I sort-of snapped and the fact that the person responsible was Tarak didn't help matters."

"Mindoir," Kokuo said simply. Shepard nodded. "All right. Rest for now, Shepard. We can continue our hunt a later day."

"Will administer anaesthetic," the Salarian said as he prepared a needle with the aforementioned substance.

He injected it into her veins, and her world went black once more.

– – – –

**Katon: Tenchi ****Enjin**; (火遁 : 天地炎尽) Fire Release: Heaven and Earth End in Flames. Inspired by the plasma 'nade from Halo and Yamamoto's technique with a very similar name.

– – – –

**A/N: Not too happy with the last scene, but after the seventh rewrite I thought 'fuck it'.**


	10. Omega IV: Departure

**A/N: Sorry for the sixteen-day delay in the planned update schedule. My procrastination regarding my bachelor's thesis kicked my butt hard. I've gotten maybe fourteen hours of sleep the past week. This may reflect in the quality of the chapter, but you'll have to read it first :D**

* * *

><p><strong>The Ancients from Alchera<strong>

_Incoming signal __detected__. __Analysing frequencies, please standby._

_Frequencies match records for Shepard, Prime. Patching through to Synchronization Station._

_Signal rerouting successful. Connection to Synchronization Station established._

_Fetching Memory Bank: Shepard, Beta. Latest timestamp: 215242888531749_

_Initiating synchronization._

– – – –

It was small, barely reaching a four kilometre radius and housing exactly twenty-five hundred.

It was weak. This village had less than than a tenth of the population of its neighbours, though the proportion of warriors they had was much higher than their neighbours, the overall population differences ensured that her fighting force was slightly more than a quarter when compared to the aforementioned neighbours. It was a wonder it hadn't gotten invaded and annexed and/or exterminated before she came here.

It was undeveloped, _especially _by her standards. While they did use eezo for their weapons – the planet was particularly rich in the stuff, so much so that she'd seen an eezo node _at the surface_, a feat not even Thessia could claim –, they were comparable to a tribal version of early twenty-first century Earth in all other aspects.

But, for all its faults, it was _hers_. In spite of its flawed nature, the village of Ma'kzre had vast amounts of untapped potential, and it was hers to develop as she saw fit. She would lead the members of her village to greatness, come hell or high water.

She'd made a good start, organizing the various armed forces under her command to a structure that made sense and funnelling as much funding as she could to basic necessities the Yahg simply didn't consider or weren't aware of.

Unfortunately, the village wasn't that rich that 'as much funding as she could' meant more than a pittance in the local currency. She'd put the weaker Yahg, as well as the children, on agriculture and farming in general, but that project wouldn't bear fruit for quite a while even with the distasteful need for child labour.

Which meant that she had precious few options open to her that went beyond stealing cash from nearby villages.

A steady thump behind her indicated that her advisor had returned from the task she'd sent him on. She didn't turn around to acknowledge him, partly because doing so indicated a good amount of trust that he wouldn't stab her in the back, partly because doing so let him know just how little of a threat she considered him, and it was always good to keep advisers on their toes.

Despite only reigning as chieftain for a few days, this one wasn't her first chief advisor.

"Chieftain, the hunters are ready. All of them packed enough food for two trips to the nearest village, and little else except for light weaponry."

She nodded once and crossed her fingers in a well-practised modified Ox handseal.

"Good. **Kage Bunshin**."

A replica of herself appeared next to her, shocking her new advisor. "This one will keep a close eye on things here while I'm out. Don't think that, just because this isn't me that I won't know what went on here."

"Certainly, Chieftain," the advisor said, his eyes showing that he'd been thinking just that.

Shepard nodded and walked past her advisor to the door. "Dismissed."

– – – –

"Alright," Shepard said five minutes later to the trio before her. They weren't the village's strongest, but they were the fastest by far. "Our mission is simple, we get in, steal what we need, and get out. If all goes well, we should not see any combat."

One of them shuffled and huffed a little.

"Yes, I know avoiding combat is traditionally seen as the coward's path," Shepard admitted. "But in this case it is the _smart_ thing to do, as we simply do not have the number of warriors to take on even the weakest of the neighbouring villages. If we had technology supremacy, it would be somewhat more even, but we don't. This will help us develop said superior technology. Understood?"

"Yes Chieftain," the Yahg grumbled unhappily. "I do not like it, but I understand."

Shepard smiled, careful not to show teeth. "Good. Any other objections or questions?"

There were none.

"Then we go," Shepard said. "Kr'Jagl, you're on point as you know the way the best. Kyrz'grz, you're the strongest, so you get to watch our backs. Kafh, you're third in line."

The quartet fell easily into place, Shepard not needing to say that she went second. She'd made a good, if short, argument for not taking the lead spot, but Yahg led from the front so anything other than second would have lost her a lot of the respect she'd managed to attain so far.

They leapt off to start the three-day trek to the nearest –

_ERROR_

_ERROR_

_ERROR_

_Stored slave memory terminated. Synchronization aborted. Biometrics of Shepard, Prime no longer within safe zone._

_Synchronizaion of slave to master aborted, bypassing master memory upload._

_Rerouting connection of Shepard, Prime to Inbound/Outbound._

_Rerout complete. Breaking connection with Shepard, Prime._

_Connection broken. Returning the consciousness of Shepard, Prime to real time. _

_Return complete. Standing by._

– – – –

Shepard awoke suddenly, startling both doctors working on her recovery. She groaned and clutched her head, barely registering some sort of amphibian presence to her left – Doctor Mordin Solus, her brain supplied sluggishly – while a tailed humanoid on her right hovered a pair of hands – glowing green – over her chest before her eyes closed from the bright glare of the light assaulting her senses.

"I just had the trippiest dream ever," Shepard said slowly into the silence, her head on the verge of killing her. It felt like that one time she'd tried to combine weed with mead – they sounded similar, so it was a good idea to mix them, right? Right? – when she was sixteen.

"Do tell," Kokuo-sensei said pleasantly, with more than a hint of curiosity in them. Shepard groaned at her voice, the sound seeming to resonate inside her head and magnifying it to migraine-inducing levels.

"Not so loud, please," she pleaded in a low, hoarse voice. She hadn't had a hangover this bad since the aforementioned incident when she was sixteen. "It wasn't just viewing my clone's life on Parnack in third person, as I'd expected, but it actually was as if I was back on Parnack, leading that village of Yahg. But..." she trailed off, not entirely certain how to proceed.

"Things didn't work out the way they should?"

Shepard shook her head in an effort to wave the pain away. "Up until the errors started popping up, it worked as it should. I just don't think it was supposed to give me this bad a hangover or terminate early."

Kokuo pursed her lips. "No, it should not," she agreed, cutting off the stream of healing chakra from her hands. "It should not be giving you any noticeable feedback at all. I will alert Naruto, he will have a better idea of what has transpired."

With that, she left.

"Greetings, Shepard," Doctor Solus greeted her, having considerately lowered the volume at which he spoke to levels she could tolerate at the moment. "Pleased to meet."

"Likewise, Doc," she said. "I think we'd better stave off official introductions until after I get this hangover cleared, if you don't mind?"

"Not at all," the Doctor said. "Will give more opportunity to record chakra. Fascinating readings. EM fields similar to biotics, but definitely not."

"The Bijū don't mind you taking scans of chakra?" Shepard asked, more than a little surprised.

"Were hesitant at first," Doctor Solus admitted as he readied a syringe with something, his omni-tool happily scanning away. "Then you incinerated gunship. Reticence vanished."

Shepard grinned sheepishly before flinching at the sudden flare of pain in her head that accompanied the action. "Kokuo tells me you sped up my recovery to mere days instead of months. Thank you for that." She tilted her head. "What's in the syringe?"

"Was no problem," Doctor Solus said. "Still Human-normal enough for Human drugs to work, and none of who you call Bijū are up to date on modern medicine. Such as painkillers. Relax."

Shepard relaxed as best she could, the efforts not being helped by the Salarian's standard reedy voice. He might have added the vocal inflections to make his tone soothing, but her ears weren't capable of picking it up, if it was there.

She'd never been all that fond of syringes, especially ones that were to be inserted into her. Doctor Solus looked at her with... sympathy? empathy? it was hard to tell... in his eyes. "General painkiller. Relax."

The syringe entered her body, prickling a little. Had she been a decade or two younger, she would have flinched as the sharp tip of the needle penetrated her skin and opened a very tiny hole in her body, but she had since been tempered by a decade and a half of military service.

Suppressing a flinch was nothing, and the cool rush of the painkiller entering her bloodstream, slowly deadening the pain as her body's cells reacted with the chemicals of the painkiller, was a godsend. The pounding headache, like someone was working the inside of her head over with a sledgehammer, was reduced to a dull thrub that she could deal with. She'd ignored worse than this.

Shepard breathed a sigh of relief that she was, as the Doctor had said, Human enough for current painkillers to affect her.

"So much better," Shepard sighed a minute later, when the painkiller had fully kicked in. "What painkiller did you use?"

"Parasinid, triple standard Human dose," the Doctor said. "Granted, extreme. Calculations showed safe, however."

"Triple the standard dosis of Parasinid, the drug that spits in pain's face and kicks it to the curb with nuclear-powered boots?" she half-yelled, her eyes narrowed.

"Metaphor over-the-top, but otherwise accurate," Doctor Solus replied calmly.

"Let's hope Naruto-sensei can fix this, then," Shepard said, her head falling back on her pillow. "Parasinid is _expensive_. He said something to the effect of this synchronization happening every time I fall asleep, and I don't exactly relish buying Parasinid in bulk. Even if that gives us a volume discount, it's still likely to cost a leg and a half."

"Agreed," the Doctor said.

The door slid open, accompanied by the soft hiss of hydraulics. "What's this I hear about unexpected side-effects?" Naruto-sensei asked while he strode over to her bedside.

"I woke up from the synchronization with my Parnack clone, which was a really trippy experience by the way, with a pounding headache and the worst hangover ever since sixteen-year-old me decided it'd be a good idea to mix weed and mead."

Naruto raised an eyebrow. "If you say so. I'm much more interested in the fact that there was negative feedback in the array in the first place. Yugito and myself went over it three times, and neither of us spotted a mistake."

"Can you fix it?" Shepard asked. "While I still live, that is."

In response, Naruto tapped her stomach once. In the wake of his retreating finger, a projection of the array appeared in the air above her stomach. "Probably," Naruto said. "Unfortunately, Yugi-koi and myself are much faster at writing seals than we are analysing them."

Shepard frowned. "Can you give me a timeframe?" she asked, somewhat petulantly. "I can't afford to lose sleep nor suffer daily hangovers, partially because Parasinid is _not _cheap and addiction concerns, and partially because... well... _daily hangovers_."

"A month?" Naruto hedged. "Two? It depends on what the exact error is. There's obviously some feedback that causes a chemical imbalance, maybe a mental artefact as well." He leaned forward. "Minds are _tricky_. Even to us."

Shepard nodded. She wasn't happy, but she was realistic enough that this was all she could expect. "Just... please, go as fast as you can without making another mistake."

"We can do that," Naruto said with a nod of his own. "Unfortunately, we can't just deactivate the seal for the same reason we can't readily diagnose the problem. How much uninterrupted tinkering time do we have before we leave?"

"I need to speak with Aria about Tali," Shepard said immediately. "Even if I am a Spectre, Tali is under Aria's employment, and technically was only given leave to check out the Freedom's Progress situation. Also, this is _Aria_."

Naruto snickered. "A woman after my own heart," Naruto said. "If I wasn't monogamous and already married, I would tap that so hard."

"I'm sure," Shepard said. "Do you know if Taigun has identified targets for Kasumi?"

"He has a list as long as my entire body," Naruto said with a snort. "Ranked them by order of potential importance, too. He's just waiting on your call to send data to Goto Kasumi."

"Good. How are our supplies? Food, water, clothing, thermal clips, spare parts, mods, the works."

"We're good on that front for at least two weeks of intensive use," Naruto said after a consultation of his omni-tool. "Unless Doctor Solus has anything he'd like to requisition?"

"Could do with more Parasinid, in case problem is not solved expediently," Doctor Solus said immediately. "More expensive to synthesize on-ship than buy,, even for Geth. However, Parasinid from Omega is... questionable. Recommend trip to the Citadel soon. No further requisitions for now."

Shepard and Naruto nodded. "Excellent," Shepard said. "Am I cleared to leave so I can settle things with Aria, Doctor Solus?"

"Call me Mordin. Easier. Yes. Still, recommend caution."

Shepard snorted as she gingerly sat up. "It's Aria," she said dryly. "'Cautious' should be your default state."

"True enough. Good luck."

"Thank you," Shepard said as she stood up and walked with Naruto to the door of the medbay after shooting a glance at the still-comatose Garrus in the bed opposite her. She stopped, a measure of guilt that she hadn't inquired to the status of her brother in all but blood yet shooting through her.

"Officer Vakarian will be fine," Mordin said suddenly, correctly interpreting her look. "Was touch-and-go, as humans say, but major injuries have been healed. Kept in induced sleep to ensure proper healing of the rest. Will be up in two days."

Shepard breathed another sigh of relief, her eyes silently conveying her gratitude to the Salarian. She turned around and left the medbay properly, donning her game face as she disembarked the Zero-One – as Tali had called it, Model 0000001 was such a handful to say every time – for Omega and Afterlife. She had an Asari to convince.

_After_ she'd changed into more suitable clothing, of course.

– – – –

Shepard walked through the doors to Afterlife after a necessary detour through the abandoned mining complex where she'd fought the mercs. She hadn't seen the remnants of her armour, but if it was fused to her skin, then the OSD would not have survived.

Thankfully, the original datapad _did._

The crowd of Afterlife parted before her like the Red Sea had before Moses, allowing her to reach the Batarian the staircase to Aria's 'office' in record time.

"What do you want?" Aria's Batarian stair-guard said gruffly.

"I need to talk to Aria," Shepard replied, waving the datapad in his face. "I've got news that she'll want to hear."

The guard grumbled and spoke into his comms. "Boss, Shepard's here. Says she has information. Yes, she'd got a datapad. Alright."

He turned back to her and nodded, stepping aside to grant her entry. "You can go up."

"Thanks," she said, and walked up the stairs.

"Ah, Shepard," Aria said amicably the moment she appeared in sight. "You wanted to speak to me."

"Yeah," Shepard confirmed. "Two things. First, are you willing to release Tali from your employment so she can join me while I sort this mess with the Collectors out?"

"She can," Aria agreed readily. "Though with one stipulation."

Shepard narrowed her eyes. "That is?" she said, a threatening undercurrent in her voice.

"Relax, Shepard," Aria said with a raised hand. "It's nothing too serious, I assure you. There may or may not be certain tasks uniquely suited to a Quarian skillset. I am simply saying that if you want Miss Zorah to join you, I will want you to give Miss Zorah freedom for one open-ended task from me."

"I'll talk to Tali, then."

"No need," Aria said, and tapped a few buttons on her omni-tool, projecting an image of Aria and Tali sitting in this very office, insofar as it could be called an office. "_That is my price __for your 'retirement'__, miss Zorah. One open-ended favour in return for letting you gallivant around with Shepard."_

_Tali sighed, her head coming to rest in one hand as she thought it over. "Fine. One open-ended favour in return for my being allowed to join Shepard's crew. Normal Flotilla restrictions to mercenary work apply."_

_Aria nodded and stuck out her hand. "One open-ended favour in compliance with Flotilla regulations. We have an accord."_

_Tali shook it. "An accord we have."_

The hologram disappeared. "And there you have it," Aria said with finality.

Shepard mulled the footage over. There was the possibility it was doctored, of course, but if it was doctored then Aria had spent a fortune getting the footage done in three days and believable enough that she, who had spent more than a year with the Quarian in question, wouldn't pick up on errors in body language.

It was either genuine, or Aria had spent a fortune to make it appear so.

"You don't mind if I ask to confirm?" Shepard asked. "Not that I don't trust you and all, especially after fifteen years ago, but you're still the Dark Queen of Omega and all-around master manipulator."

Aria flashed a grin. "Not at all."

Shepard tapped a few buttons on her omni-tool.

"_What is it, my Kaihar?" _Tali asked, earning a raised eyebrow from Aria at the address. "_Aria giving you trouble?"_

"Not per se," Shepard said. "Just wanted to ask if you'd agreed to a favour for Aria."

"_Open-ended, as long as it's in compliance with Flotilla law, yes."_

Shepard nodded. "Thanks, that's all I want to know. See you on board."

"_No problem, Kaihar. See ya."_

Shepard cut the connection and returned her attention to Aria. "'S all on the up-and-up. One favour in return for Tali."

Aria nodded, a neutral smile gracing her face for the briefest of moments. "Now that we've got that cleared up, Anto mentioned a datapad."

Shepard snapped her fingers and produced the datapad in question. "This was number two. I ran across it before the raid on Archangel's compound, and copied it to an OSD. The OSD, unfortunately, did not survive in the confines of my armour."

"Shepard," Aria deadpanned. "We felt the heat wave of your massive fireball _here. _A full floor up from where it happened. Granted, that was because the ventilation system is connected, but still. It is, quite frankly, a miracle you and your companions are still alive."

"I have a good doctor," Shepard replied smoothly. "Anyway, while the OSD didn't survive, the datapad somehow did. Here."

Aria caught the datapad and raised a delicately painted-on eyebrow at its content. She snapped a few taps at her omni-tool, agitation evident. "Garka. Get your ass over here."

The Batarian sprinted into the office three minutes later, chest heaving from the effort of sprinting in full armour, and Aria threw the datapad at his head. Garka, to his credit, didn't flinch or dodge, and simply bent down to retrieve the datapad from the floor. "How the _fuck _did this slip through the net?"

Garka read the 'pad and paled, the one universal bit of body language that informed everyone around of your fear. "I'll look into it," Garka replied nervously.

"See that you do," Aria said, her voice hard enough to bend steel. "Shepard, as thanks for the heads up that my organization requires a little spring cleaning, here."

"What's this?" Shepard asked as she received a set of coordinates on her omni-tool.

"A token of my gratitude," Aria said simply. "It's an Eclipse base I took out approximately half a century ago because they were getting annoying. I've since been using it to store various odds and ends."

"Not to sound ungrateful," Shepard said, her one guarded. "But what kind of odds and ends are we talking about, here?"

"A little of column A, a little of column B..." Aria replied evasively. "Information, weapons, and, since recent events, a whole lot about the known and wonderfully unknown properties of Terran cuttlefish. I've got it all backed up, so I'd appreciate it if you were to clean the place when you're there."

Shepard tilted her head. Cuttlefish? Large torso with six arms... A full-frontal image of Sovereign flashed through her mind, and clarity was attained. Reapers. "We'll check it out, thanks."

"Don't mention it, Shepard," Aria said. "It's the least I can do for you, as thanks for alerting me to moles I wasn't yet aware of."

"No problem," Shepard said, having no doubt that it was, in fact, the _least_ she could do and not seem ungrateful. "I'll see myself out."

"Do that," Aria said as Shepard turned around. "Call up Grizz when you pass him, will you?"

"Grizz?" Shepard asked, turning back half-way. "Who's that?"

"Left-side stair guard," she replied. "Anto's Turian counterpart."

"Sure thing," Shepard said with a nod as she turned back and walked to the Zero-One, as Tali had been calling the vessel, since saying 'Model 0000001' every time was a handful.

– – – –

"Shepard-Spectre," Taigun said the moment she boarded the Zero-One. "Your input is requested."

"Naruto-sensei told me," Shepard said. "He said you made a list?"

"Affirmative, Shepard-Spectre," Taigun replied. "We have catalogued thirty-eight research and development projects that fit the desired parameters for reappropriation."

Shepard whistled. "Nice, that'll give Kasumi a lot to do. Give me the top five for now, I'll read the full list later."

"Affirmative, Shepard-Spectre," Taigun said, bobbing the oft-called flashlight-head up and down in an imitation of a nod. "Warning: due to the significant measures that have been taken to safeguard the facilities in which they take place, all coordinates have a significant margin of error."

"It'll be fine, Taigun," Shepard assured him. "Just give me the approximate location."

"Acknowledged. The primary target is Planet Namakli, Zaherin System, Pylos Nebula. Rosenkov Materials is in possession of a Research and Development facility beneath the planetary surface. This facility has a sixty-seven percent chance of being utilized to research novel shielding technology."

"How novel are we talking about? Eezo-based but software upgrade, or completely Eezo-free?"

"Interdepartmental communications indicate upgraded hardware and software," Taigun replied. "Employee H.J.G.A. Michaels claims in four separate emails that the new software improves personnel-scale kinetic shielding by 230% without significantly altering cost of material. Ship-scale shielding can be improved by up to 150% with minimal hardware replacements."

Shepard whistled. "Damn. That's one hell of an upgrade. Most manufacturers these days are happy to get three, maybe four percent extra shielding. I take it that Rosenkov hesitates to go public because they make most of their money from armour sales?"

"Affirmative, Shepard-Spectre," Taigun said.

"Sounds promising, what are the other four?"

"The secondary target is Aite," Taigun delivered in his usual dry monotone. "Typhon-4 in the Phoenix Massing. The point of interest is a Cerberus facility experimenting in human-machine interfacing."

"Which would propel aviations to the next level, I assume?" Shepard asked absently, the word of the organization in combination with the word 'experiment' sparking memories she wished were gone inside her.

_Lifeless eyes, separated from the heads that contained them. Limbs torn from bodies. The floor invisible beneath the sheer number of escaped Rachni, who were feasting on the scientist's corpses. _

"_Help... me," the last living scientist, close to death, stammered out before a thin, sharp spike lanced through him from behind, the Rachni it belonged to singing a song of wrath. Her veins ablaze from the slaughter of innocent – or at least those unable to defend themselves – Shepard switched out her rifle for her shotgun and _roared.

**flash**

_Painterrorhorroragony raced through her as they discovered what had happened to a recently discovered Cerberus base. Her mind turned to autopilot as she ordered her squad to open fire on the Thorian thralls, to deliver upon these poor souls the freedom of the grave, and the cold, sweet embrace of the Grim Reaper._

**flash**

Shepard shook her head to stop more memories coming before her mind's eye.

"We apologize if our words caused you psychological stress," Taigun replied, his voice slightly higher yet as monotone as ever. The words themselves didn't help much, but the simple knowledge that an AI was trying to emulate empathy was enough to fully snap her out of her memories.

"Just some unpleasant memories surfacing, Taigun," Shepard said. "Don't worry about it. You were saying something about Cerberus?"

"Affirmative," Taigun said. "If the claims of Dr. G. Archer prove accurate, they have developed a prototype for human-machine neural interfacing, allowing thought-based communication between synthetic and organic."

Shepard's eyes widened. "Bloody hell," Shepard said as she shuddered. What she knew of Cerberus was that it wanted _control, _with humanity – or themselves – the controller. The chances of them doing this for altruistic reasons like improving aviations, _her _first thought, were exceedingly remote.

Right before her eyes was a humanoid platform inhabited by hundreds of programs, each separately not much smarter than a teenager bordering on pre-teen, but together they were highly intelligent.

It also had enough firepower to do serious damage before it could finally be taken out of commission permanently... and this was just a Trooper-based platform. What would happen with, say, a Prime? Or a Juggernaut?

She shuddered again.

"Scratch Aite from the list, Taigun," Shepard said. "We're going in there ourselves, and we're going right now."

"We lodge a query regarding your motivations, Shepard-Spectre."

"Fact: a human-machine neural interface has been developed by Cerberus," Shepard said.

"Affirmative."

"Fact: Cerberus is a Human supremacist group. _Humanity first!'" _she said emphatically, slamming the side of her fist against the open palm of her other hand.

"We concur."

"Fact: The best way to be number one is to control or kill all others, if inherent superiority is not an option."

"Asari historical records disagree. Creator, Turian, Krogan, Human, Batarian, Volus, and Drell records agree."

"So that's pretty much a universal fact," Shepard said. "Fact: Cerberus doesn't really seem to care which of the two it is."

"We concur."

"Fact: Two years ago, a fully-technological fighting force overwhelmed the Citadel defenses, even if it had assistance from Sovereign."

"We concur. You propose that the neural interface will be used against Heretic Geth."

"Not just the Heretics, Taigun," Shepard said. "_All_ Geth. Cerberus is, like everyone in the entire galaxy not named Aria T'Loak or affiliated with me since Parnack, unaware that a schism in the Geth has taken place prior to the invasion of Eden Prime."

Taigun gave his weird mimic of a nod. "We understand, Shepard-Spectre. We will alert the Collective to reinforce all firewalls and back-up server nodes."

Shepard nodded in satisfaction. Despite herself, she'd grown fond of the Geth over the past two years. She didn't really trust him until Tali came back from the audit of its source code, but she'd grown rather fond of him regardless. Besides, he had no less than twenty-eight opportunities to kill her in the past two years, the most recent one not even a week ago. If nothing else, he proved to be another Hernandez. She'd trusted him as far as she could throw Terra, but when it was mission time he put aside all his personal griefs and grudges for the mission. If she cocked up, she'd hear it afterwards, not during.

"Good. Pass the message to the Collective, and send Kasumi the data on the Rosenkov project. Emphasize that we aren't fully sure that this particular plant is producing this tech, but that it appears likely. Append any alternative plants where this tech may be produced, in order of descending percent chance."

"Messages sent," Taigun said less than a second later.

"Is there a briefing room present?"

"Negative."

"Are there any rooms that we use as a briefing room?"

"Three. The medical facility, the engine room, and the sleeping quarters. An annotation for inclusion of briefing facilities has been made on the schematics of Bijū-Creator-Geth Hybrid Model 00000002."

"Okay. Tell Tali and Kokuo to meet me in the sleeping quarters ASAP, and plot a course for Aite. We need to be there _yesterday._"

"Affirmative," Taigun replied. "Euphemism for maximum velocity recognized. Plotting flight vector. Estimated time of arrival: twenty-eight standard hours, fifteen minutes, ten seconds. Tali-Creator and Kokuo-Gobi alerted."

"Excellent," Shepard said. "I want you, Bee-sensei, and Naruto-sensei on standby while we're on Aite. I don't want to risk the neural interface working against you and having to fight you off."

"You would destroy this platform with no significant expenditure of effort," Taigun said. "But we will abide."

"Perhaps," Shepard said, conceding that this scenario was rather likely. "But I will need the Geth to fight off the Reapers. I can't afford to risk you in this, not now."

"We understand," Taigun said, and promptly walked off.

Shepard raised an eyebrow at the slightly stiff way in which he walked, then turned around to the sleeping quarters that the Geth had installed. Tali and Kokuo beat her to it.

"What's this about, Kaihar?" Tali asked curiously.

"Aite," she said simply. "Has a Cerberus facility where they're developing a device for human-machine neural interfacing, to use Taigun's words. We're going to destroy it, and I want you two with me. Kokuo, you're our première hardware specialist, even before taking into account that neither Garrus, Mordin, or Taigun will be joining us. Tali, you'll be joining me in the software department."

"Sure thing, Kaihar," Tali answered. "What kind of opposition can we expect? The usual Cerberus fare?"

"Probably," Shepard said with a shrug. "I'll ask Taigun, but prepare for YMIR, LOKI, and FENRIS mechs, a lot of automated point-defenses, and gas-based traps."

"Will do, Kaihar," Tali said brightly. "Those Cerberus bastards won't know what hit them."

"Human-machine neural interfacing?" Kokuo asked suddenly. "What, exactly, do you mean with that?"

"Taigun wasn't forthcoming on the details, if he knows any," Shepard said with a shrug. "But given that this is Cerberus, I assume its to take control of the Geth in some way, shape or form. After their experiments with controlling Rachni, and the Thorian experiments to control organics, the next logical step is to try and control synthetics."

"Hmm..." Kokuo said. "I concur, that does seem the most likely scenario."

"You've got twenty six hours to prepare, assuming nothing happens on the way over. We'll meet again at that point, and go over any details Taigun has shared with me since. Dismissed."


End file.
